Roslyn Barak remembers the very minute she learned she landed the job as cantor of San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El.
She was standing outside a closed-door meeting of the search committee, nervously awaiting their vote. “Then they called me in, and they had a big tray of champagne, and they said, ‘Hear, hear!'”
Emanu-El congregants have echoed the sentiment ever since that day in 1987. Today Barak is an institution in the Bay Area Jewish community, and on Nov. 3, more than 500 people crowded into San Francisco’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel to thank her for 20 melodious years.
Emanu-El clergy, administrative staff, congregants and friends turned out for a night of music, music and more music.
“This was an extraordinarily wonderful, feel-good event,” said Emanu-El Rabbi Stephen Pearce. “It was a nice way to congratulate her for her years of service to the congregation.
There was plenty of star power, too. Renowned mezzo-soprano Federica Von Stade offered a tribute, as did Kenny Maslow of “Beach Blanket Babylon.” Maslow presented Barak with a “Babylon”-style oversized hat in the shape of the Emanu-El dome.
But the highlight had to be Barak’s duet with her son, Danny, a Sacramento attorney. “It was very soulful,” Pearce reported. “I suggested they take the show on the road.”
Barak had a great time, too, although she “had mixed feelings” initially. “I wanted to do something simpler, but everyone wanted to do a big party. In the end I got into it. It’s been a very loving enterprise.”
With her conservatory-trained voice, Barak brought a level of high musicianship to her post. That doesn’t mean she’s all coloratura all the time. She loves pop and jazz, and frequently sings in both styles (check out her swinging, once-a-month jazz Shabbat).
Singing from the bimah is only one aspect of her job.
“So much here is the personal touch,” Barak said. “The personal relationships I have with the people here, the teaching with the bar and bat mitzvah kids one-on-one.”
It’s not only kids. Among her accomplishments, she established Anshei Mitzvah, the synagogue’s adult b’nai mitzvah program.
One of its first graduates is long-time congregant Ingrid Tauber. “She was a fabulous teacher,” said the San Francisco psychologist, who became an adult bat mitzvah in 1991. “She’s creative and energetic. She brought the material alive and was one of the most inspirational teachers I ever had.”
Barak grew up in Queens, N.Y., in a Jewish home she describes as “secular Orthodox.” Her father was religious, her mother liberal, and she attended an Orthodox school. “Things were confused in my house,” she added with a laugh.
There was no such confusion when it came to music. She loved to sing from childhood on, later studying at the Manhattan School of Music. As a young opera and concert singer, she performed throughout the United States. She later lived in Israel, performing with the Israel National Opera, the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic, among others.
Back home she accepted a position with a choir at a large New York Reform synagogue. After a few years, friends encouraged Barak to consider becoming a cantor. “Ten years earlier I had heard about women becoming cantors and I was in shock,” she recalled. “Suddenly, it sounded good.”
After graduating from the Hebrew Union College/School of Sacred Music, she served with a small Reform congregation in Forest Hills, N.Y.
Coming to California and Emanu-El was a radical change. “When I first came here, there was such a sense of elegance and beauty,” Barak said. “When I first saw the sanctuary, I nearly keeled over. I was a real dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, but this was too seductive and special.”
Though new clergy often avoid making too many changes too quickly, Barak didn’t take that advice. “I wasn’t very respectful,” she recalled of her early days at Emanu-El. “I was kind of impatient and put my own brand on things. I changed the way they sang the Kiddush. It caused a bit of consternation, but I said, ‘Ehh, you’ll get used to it.'”
Barak has toured Germany several times in conjunction with her CD “The Jewish Soul,” one of many recordings she has made over the years. She served on the faculty of the Academy of Jewish Religion in Los Angeles, and currently serves on the board of the American Conference of Cantors.
“She was one of my students at Hebrew-Union College, and even then it was clear she was head and shoulders above all the cantorial students,” Pearce said. “I call her the doyenne of cantors. She just elevates worship here to a much higher level.”
Now that the 20th anniversary is behind her, Barak is back to her normal routine, on her way to her 30th anniversary, and beyond. “It’s a good way to spend a life,” she said. “And if you feel you’ve done some good, that’s all you can ask for.”