Where everybody knows your name
For Cantor Jack Korbman, celebrating 50 years, that's the sign of a successful synagogue
Cantor Jack Korbman will be honored at a gala dinner on
Sunday, May 20, for his 50 years of service to the local
Jewish community. Photo by Johanna Ginsberg
Hal Kimowitz, at 57, still remembers his bar mitzva lessons. The cantor who taught him, then newly minted, "was very encouraging and very sweet," recalled Kimowitz. "He was never impatient. He would tell jokes, and he made the time fly by."
And on the day of his bar mitzva, he said, "I remember being extra nervous. I knew it, I knew the service. But I got nervous, and he told me jokes, as if he were a friend and not a religious officer."
Many years later, Kimowitz' own three sons would become b'nei mitzva, and he would occasionally sit in on their lessons. Different era, different synagogue — but the same cantor and the same story.
"It was so many years later, and he hadn't changed," said Kimowitz. "He was still sweet, never critical. And he spoke about every child as if he were his own."
That cantor, Jack Korbman, will celebrate 50 years as a hazan in New Jersey at a gala dinner on Sunday, May 20. Congregants like Kimowitz call him "a lighthouse," or guide, for his current congregation, Adath Shalom in Parsippany, a Conservative synagogue that he has served for 22 years, since its inception.
The cantor may have found his true calling so many years ago, but he once saw things differently. As a teenager, Korbman dreamed of becoming a pop singer in the mold of one of his personal favorites, Steve Lawrence. But after calculating the odds of making it big, he took a safer path, following his father into the cantorate. (His father was actually cantor and rabbi as well as a shohet, ritual slaughterer; another son followed him into the rabbinate — Rabbi Meyer Korbman of Temple Israel in Union — and a third brother did not go into the clergy.)
As a youngster, Jack Korbman had already had the opportunity to sing with the Mark Silver Choir and with cantors Berele Chagy and Maurice Ganchoff. He studied with Seymour Green, part of the big band scene in the mid-20th century, who taught him both piano and composition, something he continues to work at, he said.
Rather than go to a cantorial school, Korbman said, "I learned the old-fashioned way."
First his father taught him some liturgy, then he went on to study with established hazanim, notably Chaim Holtz in Elizabeth and with Nathaniel Sprinzen at Temple B'nai Abraham and Norman Sommers at Congregation B'nai Jeshurun, both synagogues in Newark at the time.
He earned a degree in education at Upsala College in East Orange and a master's degree from Seton Hall University in South Orange. He put both degrees to work during the 34 years he spent teaching and serving as an administrator in the Newark public school system — and at those b'nei mitzva lessons, which have come to represent his legacy.
The "pied piper of kids" is what Adath Shalom president Michael Landau calls Korbman.
"He has a magic, a talent to reach all of our kids," Landau said. "He manages to find the key to each puzzle; he opens them up and connects with them. It's so rare to see a cantor reach out and connect and bond with kids."
The payoff for Landau is what the children take away from the experience. "The children had fun preparing for their b'nei mitzva. That's the best gift a parent can hope for," he said.
The walls of Korbman's office are covered with framed photos of b'nei mitzva youngsters from throughout the years smiling back at him. It's a room designed to entice children, with puppets and stuffed animals, a ventriloquist's doll, even bubble gum and M&M machines.
When he speaks of the cantorate, it is not the liturgy or the role of the clergy he wants to discuss. He always comes back to the 12-year-olds. Some have gone on to their own successes; some, like the actor Jason Alexander, are famous. He's most proud when they take on leadership roles in the Jewish community, like a former bar mitzva student who is now president of a Florida federation.
Mostly, though, he sees his role as training children to be good people. "I want every child to be a mensch," said Korbman. "If they are considerate of other people, I've accomplished my job."
Congregants and lay leaders were quick to point out that the cantor knows when to step in. Reflecting what they all feel, one called him "the glue that keeps the synagogue together." For every transition, Korbman has filled the leadership vacuum, they said, whether the congregation was between rabbis or in the midst of a merger.
Sometimes it was a case of just offering the congregation what it needed, physically or spiritually. Last Shabbat, for example, benches and a signboard simply appeared, brought there by Korbman, who sensed a need.
Landau recalled a typical Korbman action one warm Shabbat evening a few years ago, when everyone was discussing how beautiful the day was. "He said, 'Let's do kabalat Shabbat out on the patio.'" It wasn't anything the congregation had done before, but it became a special event, according to Landau. And Kimowitz recalled that on his recent birthday, one of his first calls came from Korbman, who sang "Yom huledet sameah" — "Happy Birthday" in Hebrew — on his voice mail.
A beautiful match
Korbman's career and personal religious journey follow the arc of the local Jewish community. Raised Orthodox in Newark, he graduated from Weequahic High School in 1954. Shortly after starting his career as a cantor, he served the then-flourishing Jewish community in Irvington at Congregation Agudas Achim Bickur Cholim, where he stayed for 20 years, beginning in 1962. There, he said, he developed a "marvelous" relationship with its rabbi, Leon Yagod.
"We never had a disagreement. It was a beautiful shidduch. I learned a lot from him. I learned to be a mensch," he said. And Yagod and his congregation set the standard for every synagogue the cantor would encounter going forward. "Everyone knew your name. No one was a stranger. When you walked in the door, 20 people would come and greet you."
But the Jewish community pushed west, and many grew less observant. AABC eventually closed its doors in 1982, and Korbman went to the brand-new Congregation Beth Torah in Florham Park, originally conceived as an annex for AABC.
After two years, Korbman realized he wanted to be at a larger congregation, and the Florham Park congregation did not want to grow. So in 1985, he moved even farther west, to Temple Beth Shalom in Boonton, which was about to merge with Congregation Adath Israel of Dover and would eventually become Adath Shalom. He has been there ever since, through three rabbis and plenty of transition.
After his years as a city rabbi, he said, he still misses seeing kids playing stickball on the street. His biggest challenge, he said, is competing with students' full schedules of activities, something kids didn't have when he started out.
"Youngsters today have too many things to do," he said. "I live in Livingston, and I never see kids playing outside anymore. They're inside on computers or involved in organized sports."
Still, he said, "I treat each one like my own child. I can connect with them because I'm just a kid at heart."
Korbman has three grown sons and six grandchildren of his own. Among his sons is Jeffrey Korbman, director of the UJA MetroWest Campaign. Like his father, the younger Korbman has an M&M machine in his office on the Aidekman campus in Whippany.
At 71, the elder Korbman has no plans to retire — "as long as I continue to enjoy what I do." He said he feels he has come full circle and said about Adath Shalom: "It's a synagogue of 360 people where everyone knows your name. If you're a stranger, we'll make sure you're known. The new young rabbi, Mark Biller, he is such a mensch. It's a shidduch between the rabbi and the cantor."
Korbman and his wife, Barbara, will be honored at the dinner on May 20 along with three past congregational presidents and their spouses, Jack and Shari Baron, Susan and Joel Klinger, and Sarabeth Margolis Wizen and Sidney Wizen.
Comment | | |
All rights reserved