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West Bloomfield EAT EVERYDAY FOOD AND LOSE 3-8 POUNDS A WEEK • • • • No Hunger or Calorie, Counting No Dangerous Hormone Injections Supervised By Doctors Owned and Administrated By Michigan Board Certified Doctors HOURS M-F 8-7 SAT. 9-1 • No Contracts to Sign • No Tasteless Pre-Packaged Food or Diet Pills • No Exercising PROGRAMS FOR MEN • WOMEN • TEENAGERS Madera°. LOSS MEDICAL .WEIGHT CLINIC SOUTHFIELD WATERFORD TWP. SOMERSET MALL 557-0370 683-9600 649-1500 EAST DETROIT 778-0600 - 50 LIVONIA 538-1550 ALLEN PARK 928-0084 Friday, September 19, 1986 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS • WINDSOR •944-2677 DEARBORN 277-7744 4 NEWS Cantors Are Singing A Different Tune New York (JTA) — That uniquely Jewish clergyman, the cantor, is threatened with extinction as economics and sociology combine to curtail • the supply of replacements for a rapidly-aging generation of European-trained prayer leaders. Unlike other faiths where the priest or spiritual leader conducts the liturgy, in Judaism it is the cantor who helps lead the congregation in prayer. It is his responsibility to interpret traditional modes and chants that vary with each particular occasion — Sabbath, Passover, High Holidays — and to evoke feel- ings of spirituality among the worshippers through his mel- odious renditions of the Psalms and scriptural texts that form the basis, of the service. Until recently, the major source of cantors for con- the United gregations : States has n ee the shtetl of Eastern Europe, where gener- ations of vocally-gifted and pious young Jewish lads would study the cantorial art at the feet of the community's senior hazzan. That source disappeared forever during the Nazi Holocaust. With the proliferation of synagogues in the U.S. after World War II, the chief edu- cational institutions of Judaism's three branches — Orthodox, Conservative and Reform — each developed cantorial institutes for the training of indigenous Amer- ican hazzanim (cantors). lbday, the cantorate as a career for musically-talented young Jewish men seems to have fallen on hard times, despite salaries that average over $40,000 a year, plus benefits. Cantors in a few of the most prestigious congre- gations can earn upwards of $70,000 per year, according to Cantor Samuel Rosenbaum of Rochester, N.Y., executive vice president of the Cantors Assembly (Conservative), the world's largest body of haz- zanim. Yet there is a dearth of candidates for the profession. This year, only 11 cantors were graduated in the United States. Eight were women in- vested by the School of Sacred Music at the Hebrew Union College (Reform), the only branch of Judaism that permits women to officiate as cantors. Two male cantors were graduated from the Belz School of Jewish Music at Yeshiva University (Ortho- dox). Only one student was graduated from the Cantors Institute (Conservative) this June, while some 60 Conser- vative congregations are now actively seeking full-time can- tors for their pulpits. Perhaps it's the lure of show business — many can- tors are frustrated opera singers — that has discour- aged candidates for cantorial training. Another turn-off is a reluctance to get inolved in every facet of congregational life — officiating at weddings and funerals, teaching Bar and Bat-Mitzvah students, conducting the choir, counsel- ing congregants. These re- sponsibilities make the con- temporary cantorate • a full- time ministry. Half a century ago, many of the great cantors (Rosenblatt, Kusevitsky and others) were star performers who at- tracted overflow audiences to their synagogues — and often to their cantorial con- certs. They never gave Bar Mitzvah lessons. Whatever the reasons, the demand for cantors far ex- ceeds the supply — and the situation becomes more crit- ical with each passing year as European-trained cantors reach retirement age. lb alleviate the shortage, the Cantors Assembly recent- ly voted to establish a $1 million fund to underwrite scholarships to encourage the training of the 150 to 200 qualified cantors needed in the next decade. "The ship is leaking and we need to do something about it quickly," Rosenbaum says. Soviet Jewry Conference Held In Paris. Paris (JTA) — President Francois Mitterrand prom- ised last week that "the cause of Soviet Jewry could not and would not be abandoned." He made the pledge to four Jewish leaders who met with him on the occasion of the an- nual meeting of the European Branch of the International Conference for Soviet Jewry which opened here Wed- nesday. The delegation included Natan Shcharansky, the aliya activist now a citizen of Israel; Seymour Reich, presi- dent of B'nai B'rith Interna- tional; Leon Dulzin, chairman of the World Zionist Organ- ization and Jewish Agency Executives; and Theo Klein, president of the Represen- tative Council of Jewish Organizations in France (CRIF). They were accom- panied by Ovadia Sofer, Israel's Ambassador to France. Shcharansky had also met privately with Mitterrand to thank the French leader for his personal intervention which helped secure Shchar- ansky's release last February after nine years' imprison- ment in the Soviet Union. —I