Jewish Unity
Through Music

The North American Jewish Choral Festival,
celebrating its 10th anniversary, draws
hundreds of fews from all streams of Judaism
to the Catskills each summer.

REBECCA - GOLD

Special to the Jewish News

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A

s Jews around the world
struggle to mend the per-
sonal and political tears that
rend the community, one
organization believes it has found a
very simple bridge to understanding:
music.
Next week, the North American
Jewish Choral Festival celebrates its
10th anniversary. Quietly over the
past decade, the movement to pre-
serve Jewish choral music as a living
tradition has grown, attracting sever-
al hundred musicians — from pro-
fessionals to lay people — to the fes-
tival each summer. This year's festival
is scheduled for August 1-5, at the
Catskills' Nevele Grand Hotel in
Ellenville, N.Y.
Participants in the festival believe it
is not simply music, but a deeper
sense of spirituality and community
that draws an ever-increasing crowd
each year.
"It's empowering," says Matthew
Lazar, founder and director of the
Zamir Choral Foundation and the
force behind the festival, "to see the
joy on people's faces when they are
singing with 300 or 400 other singers.
Singing in a chorus is a very unifying
experience."
The Zamir Choral Foundation
aims to revitalize Jewish culture and
commitment through the teaching
and performing of Jewish music. In
addition to its sponsorship of the
North American Jewish Choral
Festival, the Zamir Choral
Foundation sponsors the National
Jewish Chorale and Hazamir, the
National Jewish High School Choir.
After the festival's first summer,
Lazar and his co-organizers quickly
realized that the North American

Rebecca Gold is a freelance writer

based in Washington, D.C.

Jewish Choral Music Festival was fill-
ing a niche in more ways than one. It
was attracting Jews of all denomina-
tions, drawing in everyone from choir
members to professional singers, can-
tors to non-musicians, and everyone
in between.
"The festival and foundation are
not denominationally based at all,"
says Dr. Marsha Edelman, president of
the Zamir Choral Foundation and
dean of academic affairs and associate
professor of music at Gratz College, a
co-sponsor of the event.
"The Festival is never over Shabbat;
we run multiple kinds of services each
morning. We always make sure the
food is glatt kosher so that the most
),
observant can be comfortable.
"Jews come to the festival and are
known only as 'soprano' or 'alto,' not
`Reform' or 'Orthodox,'" explains
Rabbi Daniel Freelander, director of
programming at the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations and
an organizer of the event. Freelander
is quick to emphasize that though the
Commission on Synagogue Music of
Reform Judaism is a co-sponsor of the
festival, all Jews — Reform,
Conservative, Orthodox and unaffili-
ated — are welcome and attend.
Participants need only an interest in
Jewish music — no prior experience is
necessary.
The staff concurs. "The exciting
thing about the festival," says Richard
Cohn, cantor at the North Shore
Congregation Israel SynagogUe in
Chicago and a conductor at the festi-
val, "is that everyone who comes has
the opportunity to make music in a
significant and meaningful way. What
this means is that, from whatever
background a person comes, he or she
has a chance to flourish in an environ-
ment that's welcoming and affirma-
tive."
Cohn can't say enough about the
benefits of the festival. "It's really the
most effective forum for the exchange