Notes from Cantor Avima

 I was "invested" as a Cantor (they didn't call it being "ordained" back then in 1989 by the Cantors Institute (now called the H.L. Miller School) of The Jewish Theological Seminary. The first two women to be invested as cantors by JTS graduated in 1987. But, the Reform movement ordained its first woman cantor in 1975 - 50 years ago. In honor of this milestone, the Milken Archives is doing a series of articles of women in the cantorate called: "Voices of Change, 50 Years of Women in the American Cantorate". This series will feature interviews with 7 women who have impacted the field. This first in the series is about Barbara Jean Ostfield who was the first American woman to be ordained as a Cantor (by the reform School of Sacred Music). You can read the article and the interview here Voices of Change - 50 Years of Women in the American Cantorate

     We sure have come a long way. When I entered cantorial school in the late 1980's, I was the fourth woman out of a student body of about 25. Although the four of us were admitted to the school there were no promises made other than a Bachelors Degree of Sacred Music. The Seminary ordained its first female Rabbi in 1985 (the year I entered cantorial school), but it took two more years until the first two female cantors, Marla Barugel and Erica Lippitz were invested as cantors by JTS.  Leading up to that point my co-students and I  were involved in letter writing and meetings with JTS top administrators. It was another few years  before the Cantors Assembly, the professional organization of Conservative Cantors allowed women into its ranks as members and thereby made job openings available to us. See photo below of me leading a minchah service in the hallway outside of the room where members of the Cantors Assembly had just voted down the motion to allow women into the Cantors Assembly as members in 1989 or 1990.  

     I have many memories and stories that echo those that you will read about in the interview with Barbara Jean Ostfield. It remained difficult for women cantors to get positions as many synagogues were not yet egalitarian and even those who were egalitarian were not ready for women to serve as their rabbis and cantors. Interviews focused on such topics as "can you read Torah if you are ritually impure", "How will you handle childcare", etc...  My colleagues report on being criticized both for wearing their dresses long as well as short. (It was suggested once that I be more fashionable and wear SHORTER dresses). Congregants whose daughters I prepared to read from the torah on theri bat mitzvah day requested I NOT be leading the service or reading torah myself. And, yes, the request was respected. Once at a cantors convention an attendee saw me wearing tefillin during morning minyan and stood right in front of my face during  to take a picture. 

     We have come a long way. Clearly the idea of women in both the rabbinate and cantorate has been normalized in most of our movements. I am proud to be serving Adath Shalom where I am not known as the "woman cantor", but as the cantor. Thank you!