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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