Black Musical Clergy and Jewish Cantors Come Together for ‘Voices for Change’

The death of George Floyd while in police custody on May 25 and the protests that followed were a national reckoning. Alisa Pomerantz-Boro, the immediate past president of the Cantors Assembly, the largest organization of cantors in the world, knew she wanted to use her voice for change. “That’s what cantors do,” she told the Journal. 

The chazan (she prefers that title because the Hebrew word chazan means visionary, as opposed to cantor, which means singer), said her congregation, Beth-El in southern New Jersey, has a good percentage of Black members, some of whom have belonged to the congregation for generations. 

Pomerantz-Boro said she also works with Jews by Choice, and a story one of them told her soon after Floyd’s death left her disgusted and aghast. She recounted that the person in question was a Black man who had recently converted. “He was so excited [but] as he put on his tallis, he overheard someone behind him say, ‘There goes the neighborhood.’ ” That was the moment, Pomerantz-Boro said, she knew she had to do something, noting that “music speaks louder than words.” 

To that end, she decided to bring together cantors and members of the Black musical clergy. “Any time we can show the world Blacks and Jews working together, a la Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in the civil rights movement, is a good thing,” Pomerantz-Boro said. When she presented her idea to the Cantors Assembly board (of which she is a member), it was met with unanimous support.

Pomerantz-Boro said she knew the song she wanted them to sing: Richard Smallwood’s “Total Praise.” The song is a familiar one in Black churches, and the lyrics are based on Psalm 121 and can be connected to the coronavirus pandemic: “Lord, I will lift mine eyes to the hills / Knowing my health is coming from You / Knowing my health comes from God.”

When Pomerantz-Boro approached Smallwood, she said the composer was “delighted and gracious [and] taken by the idea of having cantors and Black ministers singing together, to show that equality is important to all of us and if we partner together, we can promote change and understanding and love in our world, which is so broken.” 

To help recruit and organize the 100 clergy persons, Pomerantz-Boro turned to a friend, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, where 11 people were killed by a gunman in October 2018. Myers then reached out to Pastor Eric Manning of the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., where nine congregants were shot and killed in June 2015. Manning was one of the first people to reach out to Myers after the shooting at his synagogue.

The group also includes two cantors from the Los Angeles area, Judy Dubin Aranoff of Adat Ari El and Yonah Kliger of Temple Judea. 

Kliger told the Journal via email that he was “proud and honored that my professional organization had decided to make its collective voice heard [and show] solidarity and support and continue to build bridges.” He added that he always has been drawn to the song “Total Praise” for its powerful melody and harmonies, and while he misses the experience of leading and feeling the emotional connection of a live congregation, after nearly seven months of Shabbat services on Zoom and having recently prerecorded all of their High Holy Days services this past summer, “I am no longer a stranger to singing straight into a camera with no reaction or response from the congregation.” 

“Any time we can show the world Blacks and Jews working together, a la Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel in the civil rights movement, is a good thing.” — Alisa Pomerantz-Boro

Aranoff also told the Journal she had become used to singing into her computer after leading services remotely since the start of the quarantine. “This is now, sadly, the new ‘normal,’ ” she said via email. Making the video, she added, shows that “camaraderie and the attitude of cooperation that can be fostered in this restrictive environment in which we currently live, by coming together on a project of deep emotional connection for all of us. Real changes will only come with continued contact and cooperation and interaction between our communities, which I hope will be inspired by a project such as this.”

After recruiting the performers, Pomerantz-Boro said she had to come up with a visual idea that conveyed the message of equality while working within the constrictions of COVID-19 social distancing. That turned out to be each of the performers “floating in our own little worlds” that look like three-dimensional Zoom screens. As the song progresses, they grow closer. By the end of the video, they are singing side by side. 

To create the desired effect, the singers each recorded themselves, conducted by Smallwood. Bracketing the music is a dialogue between Myers and Manning, who reminds listeners that although we live in a time when “people are focusing on our differences … we realize that it’s equally, if not more, important to focus on the things that unite us.”  

Myers and Manning looked to the formation of the NAACP in 1909 for inspiration, Manning said, noting, “It wasn’t just People of Color coming together, it was also in conjunction with a lot of our Jewish brothers and sisters.” 

The video also serves as a fundraiser for the Afro-American Music Institute (AAMI) and its scholarship program. 

Pomerantz-Boro said of the project, “One person can have a dream and find the right people to help make that dream reality. … I know that my one voice can be heard in my community, but to be heard around the country, we need to have voices from across the country.”

The “Voices for Change” video can be viewed here.