Avima Rudavsky Darnov
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If you goFebruary 07, 2008
Three women cantors will perform in Clark as part of a year-long celebration of Kol Isha, the voice of the woman.
Coming off events marking the 20th anniversary of the Conservative movement’s decision in 1987 to invest women cantors, the concert is being sponsored by the central New Jersey branch of Women’s League for Conservative Judaism.
The concert will be held Wednesday, Feb. 13, at Temple Beth O’r/Beth Torah in Clark. Members of sisterhoods of all Conservative synagogues are invited to attend.
The event is a benefit for the league’s Torah Fund, which supports the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and the American Jewish University (formerly University of Judaism) in Los Angeles.
Event chair Rose Ann Rosenthal of Somerset said she was inspired by a concert at JTS in Manhattan on Dec. 16 last year celebrating the 20 years since the H.L. Miller Cantorial School at the seminary began investing women cantors. About 30 percent of all Conservative cantors in the country now are women, and 34 of them came to New York to perform at the concert.
“It was wonderful. I was on a high afterward, and I thought how nice it would be if we could get a few of those singers to come to Clark,” she said.
Rosenthal is a past president of Temple Beth El in Somerset, a longtime sisterhood member, and chair of the Torah Fund. Sebley Hausler of Rahway is coordinating the event at the host synagogue.
The cantors who will perform are Estelle Kunoff Epstein of Congregation Beth Shalom in Teaneck, Marla Barugel of Congregation B’nei Israel in Rumson, and Avima Rudavsky Darnov of Temple Har Zion in Mount Holly.
Rosenthal met Darnov last November at a United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism convention in Florida, but was drawn initially not to her voice but to her handcrafts. Darnov makes hand-woven prayer shawls and head coverings, and soon Rosenthal was wearing in synagogue a head covering she had bought from Darnov.
Epstein is the current president of the NJ Cantors Assembly.
Barugel, who was in the first group of female cantorial graduates, played a key role in women’s admission to the national Cantors Assembly three years later in 1990, overcoming one of the last barriers to their official acceptance. The movement had begun ordaining women as rabbis in 1985.
The NJ chapter of Women’s League for Conservative Judaism is also celebrating the 50th anniversary of its establishment.
If you go
What: Kol Isha concert featuring three women cantors
Where: Temple Beth O’r/Beth Torah in Clark
When: Wednesday, Feb. 13, 6:30 p.m.
Charge: $18 per person
Reservations: 732-249-6289