Volume 7, Number 3 - Cantors Assembly

Speaking of tenure and remuneration, I recall reading a few days
ago “The History of the Jews of Charleston”, by Ch. Resnikoff and
U.Z. Engelman. A number of pages are pertinent to our discussion and
will prove, I trust, of interest to you. The irst hazzan of the first Jewish
congregation there, in 1750, Isaac Da Costa, like its first rabbi, had to
be a “shopkeeper” in order to earn a fair livelihood. He was, it seems,
successful as a shipping agent and a real estate broker, because the lot
for the first Jewish cemetery there was bought from him.
However, in the year 1800 we find that the Hazzan Abraham
Azuby was already paid an annual salary of approximately $500.
When he died in 1805 his widow received his salary and the use of the
house in which she lived until another hazzan should be elected. She
was then to have a pension of $300 a year for life. Here we witness a
radical change within five decades.
A development that affected most vitally the trend of hazzanut
and the status of hazzanim was the period of emancipation, followed
by the birth of the Reform movement.
Congregational singing was by no means of recent vintage. It was
a subject of argument and even resulted in legal disputes. (ibid. p. 114)
It was, nevertheless, only in the Conservative congregation that congregational
singing became integral and indispensable. Experience
has shown that under the guidance of a competent musician such
singing can become a source of beauty and inspiration, minus this
guidance it is bedlam and anarchy. Here again the cantor was needed.
Bar mitzvah instruction was a hit or miss affair. A number of congregations
with ever-expanding budgets found themselves
constrained to request the rabbi to do some teaching and the cantor to
instruct the B’nai Mitzvah. Another new field for the cantor was the
organization of choral groups and women’s choruses. Music
assemblies, lectures on Jewish music, special events and services all required
the advice and direction of a trained musician. Again and again,
the congregations turned to their cantors and in almost all cases the
cantor was not found wanting.
With the new demands came also recognition of the value of the
cantor and in many cases corresponding increase in his remuneration.
It is, I believe, a fact beyond dispute that the cantor, in many
cases lacking formal training and adequate preparation for the new
tasks, accomplished a praise-worthy and noble act of adaptation and
resolution.
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