September 10th, 2025 - September 17th, 2025, 7:00 pm - 8:15 pm
The recording of session #1 is at https://youtu.be/XNULYShT7ZY.
The recording of session #2 is at https://youtu.be/BCrTsiTkVaI.
Each of this class’s participants has a website with recordings of ritual songs and other very interesting items as well as how to contact her.
For Dr Rachel Adelstein’s website click on (or copy) www.JewishMusicShows.wordpress.com
For Cantor Deborah Katchko-Gray’s website click on (or copy) www.CantorDebbie.com
For Cantor Linda Sue Sohn’s website click on (or copy) www.CantorEducator.com.
You also may want to visit www.WomenCantors.net.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the ordination of Cantor Barbara Ostfeld, the first woman to be institutionally ordained as a cantor. Ostfeld’s 1975 ordination marked a turning point in women’s journey to the cantorate. In the years since her ordination, women’s voices and women’s prayer have left an indelible impression on American Jewishness. In the first session ethnomusicologist Dr. Rachel Adelstein will discuss the history and the music of women cantors. We will meet some of the women who served as cantors before Ostfeld’s ordination, and we will listen to the voices of women changing Jewish practice in the years following, including members of the Women Cantors’ Network, founded in 1982.
In the second session, Dr. Adelstein will be in conversation with Deborah Gray and Linda Sue Sohn, two prominent members of the Women Cantors’ Network.
Dr. Rachel Adelstein is an ethnomusicologist, and a Hebrew Tutor at the Marlene Meyerson JCC. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 2013, with a dissertation entitled “Braided Voices: Women Cantors in Non-Orthodox Judaism.” Between 2014 and 2017, she was the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Junior Research Fellow at Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. Her published and forthcoming work addresses women’s music and agency in Jewish sacred spaces, the music of British Reform, Liberal, and Masorti synagogues, and the history and meaning of congregational melodies in Jewish life.
Dr Adelstein’s email address is rAdelstein@earthlink.net. Many of her written works and podcasts are at https://jewishmusicshows.wordpress.com. She has a very interesting recent article at https://www.milkenarchive.org/articles/view/beyond-the-stained-glass-ceiling-gender-and-the-modern-cantorate/ about the changes over the last few decades in the role of women cantors (and actually of male cantors also). Her article she mentioned in class about “Songs That go like This” is at https://www.academia.edu/119829531/Singing_Jewishness_The_Musical_Nostalgia_of_Jewish_Congregational_Melodies.
Cantor Deborah Katchko-Gray is a fourth-generation cantor and the second to serve a Conservative congregation. She is the Founder (1982) and Past President of the Women Cantors’ Network. Deborah has served Congregation Shir Shalom of Westchester and Fairfield Counties from l999-2024. She has been honored by the congregation for her 10th, 13th and 18th and a retirement gala for her 25th. She is the recipient of the Cantors Assembly Gregor Shelkan Mentoring and Education Award. She was chosen as one of the Jewish Ledger’s Movers and Shakers in 2009. She is the first recipient of the Debbie Friedman Miriam Award given by Miriam’s Table Women’s Seder and Chasing Light Speakers.
Her ten recordings and many with the Cantors Assembly Spirit Series are heard on Jewish radio stations and available on all digital platforms. She has published two books; Katchko-Three Generations of Cantorial Art and Prayerful Creations: Creating an heirloom tallit or challah cover using Swedish Weaving and Jewish design. The cantorial book is the only one of its kind with keys for female cantors and guitar chords for the modern cantor. She makes heirloom tallitot using Swedish Weaving and takes commissions regularly for them. She is included in the book, Modern Judaica- Today’s Makers, Today’s Sacred Objects by Jim Cohen (2023).
Her story is included in The Invisible Thread- A Portrait of American Jewish Women. Her archives are preserved with the American Jewish Archives and the National Museum of American Jewish History where two items are on permanent display. Her papers and memorabilia from her years of study with Prof. Elie Wiesel are housed in the Mugar Library at Boston University with the Elie Wiesel Archives. She is writing a book about her studies with him, Class Notes- A Lifetime of Learning with Elie Wiesel. She has presented at the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies at Boston University.
NPR ‘s program The Story for Yom Hashoah in 2009, recorded her reunion with her Holocaust cantorial cousin, Finding Family Through Song and Jewish Broadcasting Service recorded and archived her lecture, Elie Wiesel Story and Song in 2019. Deborah is an active writer with The Times of Israel Blog and Jerusalem Post. Her workshop on Lessons, Stories and Songs from Elie Wiesel is listed with the State of CT Dept of Education, Resources for teaching about the Holocaust. Deborah helped form The Women of the Wall Choir in 2023.
Sacred Sounds Reborn is a new project using her grandfather’s nusach as the base for new synagogue music that is singable, with meaningful English and easy refrains. She is composing the music with Beth Styles, arranger and producer. Workshops are being offered to help teach and encourage cantors to use the music.
Crafting with sea glass and old instruments, thrift shop frames, she has shown her work at the Rehoboth Art League and West Side Arts Market in Rehoboth Delaware
She is a cellist with the ensemble Impromtu. She is the mother of a growing family, six sons, four daughter in laws, and five adorable grandchildren! She is married to Dr. F. Scott Gray. They live in Lewes, Delaware and Ridgefield, Connecticut.
Linda Sue Sohn was ordained as a Hazzan at Hebrew College in June 2011, while also earning a Master of Jewish Education with a specialization in Jewish Special Education. Her studies concentrated on developing teaching techniques and innovative Hebrew text formatting methods for individuals of all learning styles.
Her website CantorEducator.com combines her expertise as a software usability engineer with her work as a cantor and Jewish special educator. This website is visited by colleagues and other visitors from around the world and focuses on providing free innovative chanting tools, recordings, and Hebrew sacred texts formatted for novice Hebrew readers (and for those who teach them) both in print and on-line.
Linda Sue has served Temple Aliyah in Needham, MA as their b’mitzvah tutor since 2012, and in 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2024-25, she was also their interim cantor. She has served other synagogues in eastern Massachusetts since 2004 in a variety of roles: kol-bo, High Holy Day cantor, b’mitzvah tutor, adult educator, Torah reader, and sh’liach tzibbur.
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