Photo by Mike Prince
Courtesy of Ronni Strongin
around town
2 3
4 Courtesy of Lester Shapiro
Courtesy of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia
Courtesy of Liz Stoller
Photo by Polina Bulman
1 5
6 1 To honor 39 of her relatives who were killed in the Holocaust, Miriam Einhorn of Rydal sponsored a Mobile Intensive Care Unit ambulance for Magen David Adom,
Israel’s national paramedic and Red Cross service organization. 2 Essen Bakery owner Tova du Plessis, who is from South Africa, is collecting donations to pay for
blankets for women in need in her home country. 3 More than 200 Israeli citizens and American Jews gathered on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art on
March 5 to show support for democracy in Israel. 4 Main Line Reform Temple-Beth Elohim Sisterhood members held a Purim fundraiser at their temple.

5 The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia’s Israel 75 leadership and staff are getting ready for four celebrations in honor of the Jewish state’s founding.

6 Lester Shapiro, the president of the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs’ middle Atlantic region, presented an affiliation certificate to the federation to Richard
Harwood at Congregation Tifereth Israel in Bensalem, who is the co-president of the synagogue’s men’s club.

30 MARCH 23, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT



last word
CANTOR Jack Kessler
HONORED FOR PURSUING ‘PEACE THROUGH SONG’
H Photo by Marcia Prager
Jarrad Saffren | Staff Writer
azzan Jack Kessler is the front-
man for Atzilut, a nine-mem-
ber ensemble that performs
Hebrew and Arabic music.

Kessler is the singer who specializes
in the Hebrew side of that partnership.

His fellow frontman, Maurice Chedid,
is the master of Arabic classical music.

Since forming in the early 1990s, the
group has performed at the United
Nations, the New York Folk Festival
and the Copenhagen Opera House
in Denmark. It once played for 8,000
people near the U.S.-Mexico border in
El Paso, Texas.

Kessler, a Mount Airy resident, is
aware of how this looks. It’s a political
message: If Jews and Arabs can sing
together, they can live together, too.

Except that is not quite the message.

It’s more about “making a heart state-
ment that is deeper than politics,”
Kessler said.

“Peace can’t be legislated from above
by governments. It has to be desired by
the people,” he said. “It has to come
from people’s hearts.”
For using song to pursue that goal,
Kessler was honored on March 18 at
Drexel University’s Mandell Theater
on Chestnut Street. The school’s
Mediterranean ensemble played songs
in the cantor’s honor. Performers
included “Kessler’s musical collabora-
tors,” like Bruce Kaminsky, the director
of the Mediterranean ensemble, piano
player Samuel Heifetz and trumpet and
flute player Stan Slotter, among others.

“He’s a mensch,” said Kaminsky of
Kessler. “And he’s done his best to
bring peace to the world through song,
and he deserves credit for that.”
Atzilut has pursued that goal on big
stages. But he also has pursued it on
stages as small as synagogues and
Jewish community centers. The struc-
ture of each program is to alternate
Hebrew and Arabic songs before
blending them at the end.

“One way of looking at this program-
ming concept is to demonstrate that we
have individual identities and also areas
of commonality,” the 79-year-old said.

The cantor grew up in a “traditional
Jewish home,” as he described it. His
parents escaped the Nazis by immigrat-
ing to the United States in 1941. Kessler’s
father was a “Hungarian-trained rabbi,”
as the son put it. So as his son, Kessler
“always had that in my bones.”
During his teenage years in the 1950s,
or “the Joan Baez era of folk music,” as
Kessler remembered it, he would do the
folk thing and just go out with a guitar
and play. But the future cantor eventu-
ally realized that “what really rang true
for me was the desire to do Jewish
spiritual singing.”
Even today, Kessler, who attends
P'nai Or Jewish Renewal Congregation,
has no rational explanation for that
desire. He did enjoy singing with his
family around the Shabbat dinner
table. But besides that, he cannot point
to a specific motivation. Something,
as he put it, “just clicked.” So, the
young man studied to become a cantor
and then served congregations for 20
years. But at some point during that
era, something else clicked: Kessler
wanted his music to transcend the
walls of his sanctuary.

The cantor came to view modern
Jews as “tumbleweeds who have lost
our roots because of the destruction of
the 20th century.” He wanted to re-es-
tablish those roots by helping Jews
rediscover their spirituality. For a cantor,
this meant bringing “passion back into
Jewish life” through song. Jews should
be emotionally open when expressing
their spirituality, according to Kessler.

They should not be afraid to sing.

“I don’t look at a service as something
that is performed by the leaders, but
as an interactive, highly participatory
process that involves a leader and
congregation dynamic that produces
emotional energy,” he said.

One of the projects that emerged from
this realization was Atzilut. Another was
developing a cantorial training program
for ALEPH, or the Alliance for Jewish
Renewal, in Philadelphia. Kessler
started building the program in 2000
and still works with Ashkenazi canto-
rial students to help them understand
their heritage. But he also exposes
them to non-Ashkenazi music. Kessler’s
process includes vocal coaching and
“training in spiritual expression,” as he
describes it.

He said the cantorial training program
might be the most important project of
his life.

“It’s about a certain self-trust to being
open to something larger than us that
comes through,” he added.

According to Kaminsky, Kessler is still
open to something larger than himself
when he performs. And it usually comes
through. “Jack’s extremely passionate, high
energy … and he’s no kid anymore,”
Kaminsky said. “He’s out there as a
performer.” ■
jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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