When Norman Summers searches his memories for the highlight of his 50 years as a cantor, he selects one poignant moment with a dying congregant who had summoned him.

"I went over to her bed. I put my arms around her. I kissed her forehead. She said, ‘Please sit down.' She said, ‘When you chant Avinu Malkeinu on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, I feel very close to God. I don't know what you do. I'm a music lover and there's something about the way you chant Avinu Malkeinu that touches me deeply.'"

She pointed to a siddur in the room, he remembered.

"‘Could you take that prayer book?' she said. ‘Could you chant Avinu Malkeinu for me?' I chanted softly. We were both crying."

Summers, a baritone, arrived at Temple B'nai Jeshurun in 1959, when it was still located in Newark, and served the congregation as cantor until he retired in 1999 and became cantor emeritus.

Ten years into retirement, Summers is still a presence at the synagogue. On Friday, Sept. 7, he was honored by the synagogue for 50 years in the cantorate at a gala Shabbat service, which was attended by an estimated 800 people.

"Why do you think, 10 years after his retirement, so many people came?" asked his successor, Cantor Howard Stahl. "Because he touched so many people's lives. He did it gently, quietly. People love him for that."

Congregants uniformly praised Summers not only for his rich musical legacy to the synagogue, which included original compositions, recordings, and performances by acclaimed musicians, but for his unstinting kindness.

"He took over a room when he came in. He was so charismatic," said Allan Kreitzman, a longtime member of the synagogue who served as one of the chairs for the Sept. 7 event. "People would come to services to listen to his deep baritone voice. It was just unbelievable. I got goose bumps when he sang."

Eleanor Kessler Cohen, who represents the fourth generation of her family in the congregation, was in college when Summers arrived.

"I was always struck by the humanity of the man," she said. "He had not only the gift of musicality, but a genuine niceness and kindness."

Interviewed Sept. 12 in B'nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, Summer acknowledged that the biggest challenges he faced came long before he became a cantor. They included not only virulent anti-Semitism in his native Toronto and throughout the professional music world, but also two rejections from cantorial school before he was finally accepted.

Norman Summers was born in 1927 and it wasn't long before he was entertaining guests with song. By the time he was three, his father had taught him Ein Keloheinu, Adon Olam, and other tunes from the Shabbat service as well as some hasidic melodies, which he sang whenever his parents had company — but always from the kitchen, he said, "because I was shy."

The family belonged to Anshe Drildge, an Orthodox synagogue in Toronto, and the cantor there, Norman Appleby, served as his first role model and mentor. By the age of nine, Summers had joined a synagogue choir, and by 14 he was singing "Because" at weddings throughout Toronto.

He played the title role in his high school production of The Mikado. Not long after, he won a place at the Toronto Conservatory of Music, now the Royal Conservatory of Music at the University of Toronto. He was the only Jew in his class and was the victim of a terrible beating during his time as a student there. One day, called into the dean's office, he was sure he was about to be kicked out of the school, particularly when the dean asked if he was Jewish. Instead, he was offered a position as cantorial soloist at Holy Blossom Temple, a prominent Reform congregation in Toronto.

Although he went on to win several prestigious musical competitions (and had some of the prizes taken from him because he was Jewish, he said), he always knew he wanted to be a cantor.

"My heart wasn't in opera," he said. "My heart was in the cantorate."

In 1948 he applied for admission to the School of Sacred Music at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religious in New York. To his amazement, he was rejected. "I was shocked that with my background, they would turn me down," he said.

According to Summers, Wolf Hecker, in charge of admissions, felt that rather than destined for the cantorate, Summers was planning a career in the opera. "I was neither here nor there," he said.

He accepted odd jobs as a soloist for a few years, and was drafted into the army, where he spent some of his time singing to sick soldiers. When he applied to HUC in 1954, he was rejected again. But Summers was determined and eventually, after a few people made a few phone calls, he gained admission.

"The greatest thrill of my life was when Abraham Binder, the father of Jewish music in America and my teacher at HUC, took me down the aisle to get my degree, where Dr. Nelson Glueck pronounce me a hazan. That was the thrill of my life," said Summers.

He was quickly hired by B'nai Jeshurun, where he developed a strong relationship with Rabbi Ely Pilchik, whom Summers called "a great talmudic scholar."

Judith Pilchik Zucker was 11 years old when Summers began with the congregation. "My father just adored Norman," she recalled. "They had an incredibly strong connection."

Together, rabbi and cantor wrote several cantatas, including one just after the race riots in Newark in 1967. "That's the one that stands out in my mind. There was a folk quality to the lyrics and the tune," said Zucker.

Summers arrived at B'nai Jeshurun the same year as Rabbi Barry Greene, who would eventually become senior rabbi and is now rabbi emeritus. They served together for 40 years. On the occasion of Summers' retirement, Greene said in an interview with NJJN, "We have shared not only a dedication and devotion to Jewish liturgy, but also a love for the New York Yankees."

From 1970 to 1987, Summers also taught at HUC in New York, where Stahl was one of his students. Summers served as president of the American Conference of Cantors and also received from that organization the Semiatin Award for outstanding service to the American cantorate.

He bore witness to the shift in American-Jewish liturgical music, from the operatic styles of Max Helfman and Isadore Freed to the folksy approach of Craig Taubman and Debbie Friedman. While he exhibits a preference for the more classical pieces, congregants all praise him for always embracing new styles of composition.

"He was always into new and exciting music, but preserved tradition," said Jerry Harwood, who served as B'nai Jeshurun president from 1980 to '82. "He taught us to be open-minded, willing to listen to different kinds of music. He was always trying new melodies and learning new pieces."

For one of the first times in congregational memory, Summers' wife, Carole, offered her own tribute at the anniversary event.

"When Norman stands on the bima, he is a true hazan," she told the congregation. "He doesn't sing, he chants. He doesn't chant from his throat, he chants from his heart."