True calling gives Rice alumnus Rebecca Garfein something to sing about

True
calling gives Rice alumnus Rebecca Garfein something to sing
about
…………………………………………………………………

BY TRACEY
RHOADES
Special to the Rice News

Seventy-two years
ago, a woman gave a sermon in a Berlin synagogue —
a first-time occurrence in a city recognized as one of the
birthplaces of modern Judaism. A few years later, the first
female rabbi was ordained. Such progressive actions, however,
came to an abrupt halt with the onslaught of World War II.
Now, seven decades later, another woman, Cantor Rebecca
Garfein ’89, has again significantly impacted Jewish
religious history.

The daughter
of a rabbi, Garfein realized early on that music was her
true calling. “I was in a children’s choir when
I was eight years old,” Garfein recalled, “and
that is when I was bitten by the opera bug.” As a regular
singer at her father’s synagogue in Tallahassee, Fla.,
Garfein had the ideal venue for nurturing her talent. In
addition to participating in her high school’s chorus
and musicals, Garfein grew up listening to Jeanette Lombard,
who at that time was a cantorial soloist in Tallahassee.
When Lombard joined the Rice faculty in 1982 as a voice
and diction teacher, Garfein’s college choice became
an easy one.

With a scholarship
from the Shepherd School of Music, Garfein matriculated
at Rice in 1985. She embraced the opportunity to perfect
her talent and under Lombard’s tutelage began formal
vocal training. “I received a first-class education
at Rice,” Garfein said. “I, of course, especially
remember my phenomenal voice teacher, Jeanette Lombard,
as well as professors Tom Jaber, Walter Bailey and Marcia
Citron.”

In addition to
fulfilling her course obligations at Rice, Garfein served
as a music teacher at congregations Emanu El and Beth Israel
in Houston and as a song leader for the Southeastern and
Texas–Oklahoma regions of Temple Youth.

After graduating
cum laude with a bachelor of music, Garfein decided to take
her musical training one step further. She applied and was
accepted at the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute
of Religion (HUC–JIR), the first institution of Jewish
higher learning in America, and began a rigorous four-year
training program to become a cantor. “A cantor,”
explained Garfein, “is a member of the Jewish clergy
who sings the sacred music of the synagogue.”

At HUC–JIR,
Garfein was in elite company. Prior to 1975, women were
not permitted to become cantors, according to Jewish custom.
But as a result of the Reform movement, the liberal movement
of Judaism, women earned the right to be ordained as rabbis
and invested as cantors in the early ’70s in the United
States. HUC–JIR ordained the first woman rabbi in America
in 1972 and the first female cantor in ’75.

Garfein’s
four years at HUC–JIR were arduous. She initially spent
a year in Jerusalem, along with other rabbis, cantors and
educators, studying modern and biblical Hebrew and learning
to chant all of the Jewish biblical texts. From there, Garfein
went to the institute’s School of Sacred Music in New
York City, where she completed three more years of course
work, earning a master’s degree in sacred music and
cantorial investiture in 1993. “Being at HUC–JIR
was different than music school,” Garfein said. “Besides
taking vocal instruction, I also was being trained to be
part of the Jewish clergy.”

Following completion
of her graduate degree, Garfein was well-prepared to put
her talents and knowledge to use. She was engaged full time
by the Riverdale Temple in the Bronx, becoming the first
cantor of that 53-year-old congregation. Living and working
in New York also enabled Garfein to pursue her operatic
career. In 1996, she made her debut with the New York ProArte
Chamber Orchestra at Cami Hall and has since participated
in the opera program at DiCapo Opera in New York City and
at the Aspen Music Festival. Garfein noted that although
cantoring and singing operatically produce two distinct
types of vocal music, she uses the same technique for both.
“I call on my training every time I sing,” she
said. “It’s the venues that are different.”
Ironically, Garfein’s synagogue is only a few blocks
from the Metropolitan Opera.

As if Garfein
couldn’t be more in tune, she hit her highest note
yet in November 1997. A regular participant in Berlin’s
annual Jewish Cultural Festival, Garfein was asked to sing
at the Centrum Judaicum, an auditorium housed in the former
Oranienburger Strasse Synagogue. A historically significant
site, the synagogue was damaged Nov. 9, 1938, a date recognized
as the “Night of Broken Glass,” when Nazi soldiers
vandalized Jewish property throughout the city, heralding
the beginning of the Holocaust. Before the Allies destroyed
the synagogue in the battle for Berlin, the Nazis used it
as a horse stable. In 1995, the sanctuary was partially
reconstructed and dedicated as a memorial.

Singing liturgical
music previously chanted only by male clergy and performing
in what was the women’s gallery of the synagogue, Garfein
became the first female cantor to give a solo concert in
Germany. “I’m profoundly grateful to have earned
this distinction,” affirmed Garfein, “especially
since Berlin is a city that once shut its doors to Jews.”
In addition to singing standard Jewish prayers in Hebrew
and Yiddish, Garfein also performed prayers inherent to
modern synagogues in the United States. To mark the importance
of the occasion, a live CD, “Sacred Chants of the Contemporary
Synagogue,” was released following the festival, and
it includes two selections that Garfein dedicated to the
memory of the six million Jews who perished during the Holocaust.

Captivating
the audience in this unprecedented performance, Garfein
also was personally affected by the event because it took
place in the same city that her maternal grandfather had
fled 60 years before. “Both of my mom’s parents
escaped Germany in 1938,” Garfein explained. “And
although my grandfather wasn’t able to travel, both
my grandparents lived to see a world where it was possible
for their own granddaughter to make the journey back to
Berlin.”

Garfein’s
1997 appearance was so well received that she was invited
to make a return visit in 1998, symbolizing further change
in Berlin’s Reform Judaism movement. Accompanied by
an eight-voice choir from Berlin’s Pestalozzistrasse
Synagogue, Garfein made history once again as the first
female cantor ever to preside in a German synagogue, a place
where, traditionally, men were separated from women and
children during Jewish religious services. “As a result
of my concerts,” says Garfein, “a young woman
from the choir is studying to be the first female cantor
to serve a German congregation.”

Garfein has
assumed a new position with Congregation Rodeph Sholom in
Manhattan as a senior full-time cantor. Though not as magical
as her Berlin engagements, Garfein’s days are far from
dull. “I am at the synagogue five to six days a week
— sometimes until 10 p.m.,” Garfein said. In addition
to singing at all Friday evening, Saturday morning and holiday
services, Garfein prepares boys and girls for bar and bas
mitzvah. And she heads up adult, professional and children’s
choirs.

Despite her
many accomplishments, Garfein continues to embrace her life’s
ambition. “I feel so fortunate that I was able to turn
my love of music into a career,” she said.

— Tracey
Rhoades is the editor of Owlmanac.