Hazzan

History

Early sources in the Mishnah refer to a position called chazzan hakenesset, which involved leadership roles in public prayer, although not necessarily involving music or singing. Later, as public worship was developed in the Geonic period and as the knowledge of the Hebrew language declined, singing gradually superseded the role of sermons in synagogue worship, and the role of chazzan began to focus on chanting or singing of the prayers. Thus, while the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources, the office of the hazzan increased in importance with the centuries, evolving a specialized set of skills and becoming a career in itself.

Professional status

The role of the hazzan as a respected full-time profession has become a reality in recent centuries. In the last two centuries, Jews in a number of European communities, notably Germany and Britain, came to view professionally trained hazzanim as clergy and the hazzan as the deputy rabbi. After the enlightenment, when European nations gave full citizenship and civil rights to Jews, professionally trained hazzanim were accepted by the secular governments as clergy just as rabbis were.

Paradoxically, the United States government recognized cantors as the first Jewish clergy, even before rabbis were recognized: as a congregation could be organized and led by a committee of Jewish laypersons, who would not have the expertise in liturgy a hazzan would have, newly forming congregations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries sometimes hired a hazzan for a synagogue (and made sure that a kosher butcher was established in the neighborhood) for some time before setting about hiring a rabbi, seeing the hazzan (and the shokhet, or kosher butcher) as a more immediate need. The hazzan therefore solemnized marriages and otherwise represented the congregation in the eyes of civil authorities.

In the United States, many hazzanim supplement their ministry by also earning certification as mohels for bris ceremonies.

In the United States, there are three main organizations for professionally trained hazzanim, one from each of the major Jewish denominations:

• American Conference of Cantors—Reform Judaism
• Cantors Assembly—Conservative Judaism
• Cantorial Council of America—Orthodox Judaism

Training

Many members of the Cantors Assembly are trained at the H. L. Miller Cantorial School and College of Jewish Music at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Many members of the American Conference of Cantors are trained at the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music at Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. Both of these programs offer a five-year training program. Members of the Cantorial Council, the Orthodox cantorial association, can train at the Philip and Sarah Belz School of Jewish Music at Yeshiva University in New York.

ALEPH, the Alliance for Jewish Renewal, includes a cantorial training program as part of its ordination program.

Full cantorial training is also offered by the Cantorial School of the Academy for Jewish Religion (California) in Los Angeles, the Cantorial Program at the similarly named Academy for Jewish Religion in New York, and the School of Jewish Music at Hebrew College. These institutions are unaffiliated with any particular Jewish denomination.

The curricula for students in these programs generally include, but are not limited to:

• Hebrew: modern, Biblical (Torah), and liturgical (siddur)
• Nusach (liturgical tradition)
• Laws and traditions pertaining to Jewish prayer service
• History and content of the siddur
• Music theory, sight-reading
• Playing an instrument, usually a piano or guitar
• Singing technique
• Cantillation—tropes for the liturgical chanting of biblical books
• Choral conducting
• Jewish history
• Tanakh (Hebrew Bible)
• Jewish music history
• Pastoral care and counseling
• Theology

Non-Orthodox titles

Until 2012, neither the Reform nor Conservative streams used the term ordained for trained cantors; use of the term invested precluded confusion with those they titled rabbi. In 2021, Conservative Judaism's flagship institution, the Jewish Theological Seminary, began using the term ordain with respect to cantors.

Female cantors in non-Orthodox Judaism

In the 21st century, most streams of non-Orthodox Judaism no longer maintain gender distinctions, and therefore women often serve as cantors in these communities.

The earliest known woman ḥazzan, Julie Rosewald, called "Cantor Soprano" by her congregation, is sometimes called the United States' first female cantor, serving San Francisco's Temple Emanu-El from 1884 until 1893. However, she was not ordained.

Another early and un-ordained woman ḥazzan was Madame Goldye Steiner, who sang in cantorial concerts as well as in Broadway shows throughout the 1920s. She was one of the first African-American female cantors.

In 1955, Betty Robbins (born Berta Abramson in 1924, in Greece) was appointed as cantor of Temple Avodah, a Reform congregation in Oceanside, New York. Like Rosewald, she was not formally ordained, but "the spokesman for the School of Sacred Music, founded in 1947 as the first training school for cantors in [the United States], said today there was no religious law, merely a tradition, against women becoming cantors", indicating the school's institutional approval.

In 1975 Barbara Ostfeld-Horowitz became the first ordained female cantor in Jewish history.

The Women Cantors' Network was founded in 1982 to support and advocate for women cantors by Deborah Katchko, the second woman ever to serve as a cantor in a Conservative synagogue. Initially a group of only twelve women, its membership grew to 90 by 1996. The organization holds an annual conference.

In 1987 Erica Lippitz and Marla Rosenfeld Barugel became the first two female cantors ordained in Conservative Judaism; they were ordained at the same time by the Cantors Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City.

The Cantors Assembly, a professional organization of cantors associated with Conservative Judaism, did not allow women to join until 1990.

Sharon Hordes became the first cantor (female or otherwise) in Reconstructionist Judaism in 2002.

Avitall Gerstetter, who lived in Germany, became the first female cantor in Jewish Renewal (and the first female cantor in Germany) in 2002.

Susan Wehle became the first American female cantor in Jewish Renewal in 2006, serving until her death in 2009. The first American women to be ordained as cantors in Jewish Renewal after Susan Wehle's ordination were Michal Rubin and Abbe Lyons, both ordained on January 10, 2010.

In 2001 Deborah Davis became the first cantor (female or otherwise) in Humanistic Judaism; however, Humanistic Judaism has since stopped graduating cantors.

In 2009, Iran-born Tannoz Bahremand Foruzanfar was ordained as a cantor by the non-denominational Academy for Jewish Religion (California), becoming the first female Persian ordained cantor in the United States.

Golden age

The period between the two world wars is often referred to as the "golden age" of hazzanut (cantorial performance). The great figures of this era include Zavel Kwartin (1874–1953), Moritz Henle (1850–1925), Joseph "Yossele" Rosenblatt (1882–1933), Gershon Sirota (1874–1943), and Leib Glantz.

In the post–World War II period, prominent cantors were Moshe Koussevitzky, David Werdyger, Frank Birnbaum, Richard Tucker and Abraham Lopes Cardozo (1914–2006). Operatic tenor Jan Peerce, whose cantorial recordings were highly regarded, was never a cantor by profession but often served as one during the High Holidays.

Popular contemporary cantors include Shmuel Barzilai, Naftali Hershtik, Yitzchak Meir Helfgot, Chazzan Avraham Aharon Weingarten, Ari Klein, Yaakov Lemmer, Joseph Malovany, Benzion Miller, Jacob (Jack) Mendelson, Aaron Bensoussan, Aaron Aderet, Alberto Mizrahi, Yaakov Yoseph Stark, Jochen (Yaacov) Fahlenkamp, Meir Finkelstein, Alex Stein, Daniel Gross, Azi Schwartz, Netanel Hershtik and Eli Weinberg.

Hazzan Sheni

The title Hazzan Sheni (Sheni means 'second') can refer to

• a hazzan who plays that role when the main hazzan does not officiate
• a hazzan who fills a different spot, such as when the main hazzan leads Musaf, and the Sheni leads Shacharit.