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36
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 1992
Cantors Establish
Traditionalist Group
New York (JTA) — Can-
tors unhappy with the lib-
eral trend in the Conser-
vative movement and a shift
to the right in the Orthodox
community have formally
established a professional
organization they hope will
meet their needs better than
the existing Orthodox and
Conservative associations.
A group of the disaffected
cantors met in Toronto dur-
ing the last week of October
and voted 99-3 to create the
International Federation of
Traditional Cantors.
It is intended to meet the
needs of right-wing Conser-
vative, left-wing Orthodox
and non-aligned cantors who
are committed to Halacha,
or traditional Jewish law,
but are feeling squeezed out
of the various movements.
One of the group's
founders, Cantor A. Eliezer
Kirshblum of Toronto, is a
former executive committee
member of the Cantors
Assembly who was upset
with the Conservative
group's decision earlier this
year to admit women who
receive cantorial degrees
from the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America.
But while that decision for
Cantor Kirshblum was the
final move beyond an accep-
table level of halachic flexi-
bility, he believes a prob-
lematic leftward trend
began in the Conservative
movement long beforehand.
"There's a disenchant-
ment, to put it mildly,
within the Conservative
movement about the direc-
tion of the seminary within
the last decade. They're get-
ting closer and closer align-
ed to Reform," he said.
"Many of us are becoming
isolated within the move-
ment because we don't have
a place any more," he said.
Cantor Kirshblum said
that at the same time, there
is "a move to the right
within the Orthodox world.
And in the Orthodox camp,
very few synagogues are ac-
cepting full time cantors, so
many Orthodox cantors have
to go into Conservative syn-
agogues."
The turnout of 102 cantors
at the Toronto meeting pro-
ves that there are a lot of
cantors whose needs are not
being met by the Conser-
vative and Orthodox profes-
sional associations, he said.
The vote to form the fed-
eration followed a two-hour
discussion in which leaders
from all of the cantorial
organizations present par-
ticipated, said Cantor Kir-
shblum. He said the three
dissenting votes came from
officers of the Cantors
Assembly.
Cantor Kirshblum expects
that at least 200 cantors will
want to join the new organ-
ization once it gets off the
ground. That would make it
substantially larger than
the 128-member Orthodox
Cantorial Council of
America, which is affiliated
with Yeshiva University,
and half the size of the Con-
servative movement's Can-
tors Assembly.
In addition to strong sup-
port from American and
Canadian cantors, there is
"tremendous response" from
England and from Israel, he
said. "This convention was a
huge success in every
respect."
The relationship of the
new federation to other can-
Cantor Kirshblum
said that at the
same time, there
is "a move to the
right."
torial organizations and to
the Union for Traditional
Judaism has yet to be de-
termined.
The union is a rabbinic
and educational organiza-
tion based in Mt. Vernon,
N.Y., that split off from the
Conservative movement in
1984, following the Jewish
Theological Seminary's
decision to ordain women
rabbis. It established its own
seminary in 1990 and now
has 8,000 member families.
While there is not yet an
official link between the
union and the new cantorial
federation, "by nature we
have an association, and an
informal relationship al-
ready exists," said Rabbi
Ronald Price, the union's
executive vice president.
One of the reasons that no
formal relationship has been
created is because "among
the Orthodox, there is still
suspicion" of the union,
"because its roots are in the
Jewish Theological Semi-
nary" of the Conservative
movement, Cantor Kir-
shblum said.
And according to Cantor
Bernard Beer, executive di-
rector of the Orthodox can-
torial association, exactly
what form the new federa-
tion will take remains to be
seen.