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Synagogues
A Perfect Match
New cantor's qualities meet Shaarey Zedek's needs.
SHELLI DORFMAN
Editorial Assistant
In Los Angeles,
congregants
knew Ralph
Goren as the
Karaoke Cantor
f
inding himself in the right
place at the right time,
Cantor Ralph Goren was
halfway home. Talent, creativ-
ity and innovation brought him the rest
of the way.
The Detroit native became the
newest member of the clergy at
Congregation Shaarey Zedek because of
what he describes as a successful shiduch
(match).
While Cantor Goren was looking to
join "a well-established, well-known syn-
agogue in familiar territory," Shaarey
Zedek was searching for a cantor with a
b'nai mitzvah and youth education
background. The Cantors Assembly of
America, a professional group affiliated
with the United Synagogue of
Conservative Judaism, and its placement
service, did the rest.
Goren became a cantor, he says, as a
result of the whens and wheres of his
professional life.
His family belonged to Shaarey
Zedek in the days when it was located
on Chicago Blvd. in Detroit. He later
became involved at Congregation
B'nai Moshe, where he attended
United Hebrew School classes and
says he was "heavily influenced by
Cantor Louis Klein," eventually
becoming Cantor Larry Vieder's assis-
tant choir director at Adat Shalom
Synagogue. Cantor Goren still refers
to Larry Vieder as "my cantor."
With a music therapy degree earned
at Wayne State University in Detroit,
Cantor Goren moved to Los Angeles in
1981. He says he took his experience
with music activities and his Judaic
background to a position as a b'nai
mitzvot teacher and youth director. His
synagogue rabbi suggested that he pur-
sue private studies toward the cantorate,
referring him to a "maestro cantor," the
late chazzan Allen Michelson. On reflec-
tion, Cantor Goren says, "If I weren't in
the right place, becoming a cantor]
wouldn't have happened." But thinking
back, he sees it was the next evolution-
ary step."
Working from a number of pulpits,
Cantor Goren says he gained the experi-
;
8/13
1999
60 Detroit Jewish News
.
Cantor Ralph Goren
ence necessary to become a member of
the Cantors Assembly in 1991.
While working at a Los Angeles
synagogue heavily populated with
Russian immigrants, Cantor Goren
instituted a youth curriculum. It was
developed as an offshoot of the dwin-
dling "twinning" program, popular in
the '80s, where American kids shared
their b'nai mitzvot, in spirit, with
those lacking the freedom to have the
ceremony in their own country. From
1990-94, Cantor Goren invited new
Americans of bar/bat mitzvah age,
with an occasional 14- or 15-year old,
to participate in his "crash course in
Judaica and Hebrew," leading to an
aliya [call to Torah] on the bima.
For the 48-year-old cantor, returning
to this area to serve at Shaarey Zedek
means being nearer to his mother, Sadie
Goren, of Southfield, his brothers and
other relatives, and to old friends from
his days at Oak Park High School,
where he graduated in 1968.
Cantor Goren says there's a familiari-
ty in working with Shaarey Zedek
Cantor Chaim Najman, whom he knew
quite well from cantorial conventions,
Shaarey Zedek Cantors Ralph. Goren and Chaim Najman
and Shaarey Zedek Rabbi Stephen
Weiss, after their involvement in United`
Synagogue Youth leadership.
Impressed with Cantor Goren's work
with children, Cantor Najman says, "he
will spend a lot of time in the syna-
gogue's schools."
After completing the first month in
his new position, Cantor Goren sees his
focus as "bar mitzvah program involve
ment, teaching prayers and music in
nursery school, Hebrew school and
Hebrew high school," with plans to
institute a new program of musical and
cantorial education projects in all three.
In addition to pulpit work, Cantor
Goren has sung with the University of
Judaism's adult choir..He has studied
privately with Tova Morcos, the choir
director and Cantors Assembly premier-/
accompanist. The Southfield resident Lr'`
has performed throughout Los Angeles
and appeared in concert on television.
A piano and guitar player, he has
produced musical variety concerts, and
was known by his Los Angeles congre-
gants as the Karaoke Cantor.
A past vice-president of the Cantors
Assembly Western Region, Cantor ,
Goren's position included serving as (---\
Western Region representative to the
regional United Synagogue board as
well as the Conservative Movement
Cantors Council.
For the past five years, Cantor Goren
has been a cantor at Temple Ramat
Zion, the Conservative synagogue in
Northridge, Calif
In welcoming Cantor Goren to
Shaarey Zedek, Cantor Najman
describes him as a ''very gifted, capable
person making a very big contribution
to the synagogue." He says that in the
"large congregation, with three facilities,
and lifecycle events," Cantor Goren is
quickly become a part of the synagogue
family, indicating that for Shaarey
Zedek, this is the right time for the new
relationship.
Cantor Goren's car, with California
plates sporting the name "CNTRALF,"
a Cantor Ralph abbreviation that
matches his e-mail address, sits in its
space at Shaarey Zedek. It's in the
new/old community that he now calls
home, showing that for Cantor Ralph
Goren — this is the right place, too. I 1