Cantor Mintz is installed at Touro

By KAREN LOZINSKI, Exclusive to the CCJN

The celebration of the formal installation of Cantor David Mintz took place during last week’s Shabbat service at Touro Synagogue, taking normally anticipated joy and gratitude to soaring levels of ebullience through worship and song.

Cantor David Mintz is installed with (from left) Rabbis Alexis Berk and Angela Buchdahl at Touro Synagogue on Oct. 17, 2014. (Photo by Karen Lozinski

The service was jointly led by Touro Rabbi Alexis Berk  and Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, the senior rabbi of Central Synagogue of New York. Buchdahl was instrumental in Mintz’s appointment to his new cantorial position at Touro, as Mintz completed his internship under her tutelage at Central while he was studying to prepare for ordination at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR).

“Even as a student, David was a star,” Buchdahl exuded from the pulpit.   “Now, as a fully-grown clergy person, he takes on all manner of tasks, and Alexis (Berk) is not alone in leading this Jewish congregation.”

Buchdahl should know. She is the first Asian-American to be ordained as cantor or rabbi in North America, was invested as a cantor in 1999 and also ordained as a rabbi in 2001 by the HUC-JIR. (Editor’s note: Since 2012 all cantors are ordained rather than invested by HUC-JIR. All previously invested cantors received notifications of ordination at that time.)

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, who was instrumental in Cantor David Mintz’s appointment and installation at Touro Synagogue. (Photo by Karen Lozinski)

Buchdahl referred to the congregation at Touro as “beautiful, vibrant, and singing,” and claimed Berk as her “soul sister, as well as her oldest, dearest friend in the rabbinate.”

“I’d like to believe I have a little bit of insight into the rabbi-cantor relationship,” said Buchdahl, to ripples of laughter from the service attendees. She went on to state that the relationship works better as a partnership rather than a hierarchy, referencing the Book of Genesis and the creation of Eve from Adam, and how through the lens of life in the ancient Near East that may be interpreted as a message of female subservience.

Buchdahl prompted the congregation to think of the Creation story in terms of gender equality, however, since Eve’s existence in Adam can be understood as fully formed, and that she emerged as an equal partner as well as a helper.

“Every rabbi needs a helper,” Buchdahl observed, “and though that may make Alexis, Adam, and David, Eve, in this relationship, this is partnership.”

Touro Synagogue clergy Rabbi Alexis Berk and Cantor David Mintz at Shabbat Kiddush. (Photo by Karen Lozinski)

Buchdahl encouraged the worshippers to embrace Mintz with “everything they have.”

Mintz spoke from the pulpit of his being “surrounded by moments of transition” in life and in the Jewish community as a whole. He regarded his new position as cantor at Touro and his work during the recent High Holidays. The cantor stated that the leaves on trees are changing around the country with the progression of fall, not just around General Pershing Street. The assembly echoed a chorus of appreciative laughter.

Mintz referred to his grandmother’s belief from the earliest days of his childhood that he’d one day become a cantor—that he was destined for Jewish leadership. Though he always loved music, his path in life wasn’t always as clear for him, and he was grateful he had to craft himself into his role rather than simply inherit it.

Mintz earned his bachelor’s degree in music from Boston University, and continued his studies in the same discipline at the Manhattan School of Music, where he completed his master’s. While a student at HUC-JIR, he was the recipient of a cantorial fellowship in the Tisch Leadership Program, which aims to foster transformational leaders in the Reform movement. He served as cantorial intern at Central Synagogue in Manhattan and Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York, as well as student cantor at Adat Chaverim in Plano, Texas.

As an educator, Mintz has served as a guest lecturer on Jewish liturgical music at the University of Louisiana (Lafayette) and has taught at BIMA at Brandeis University and Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) Mitzvah Corps in San Francisco, CA. He was a summer chaplaincy intern at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, NY and was the recipient of a Fischl-Kohn Memorial Grant to travel to Prague with the Defiant Requiem Foundation to research his cantorial thesis on the music of Theresienstadt.

Mintz said he was humbled by the shoes he now had to fill as cantor at Touro, expressing more gratitude towards the congregation for being “generous, and open-hearted and open-minded.”

Mintz’s father is a rabbi, and he thanked his parents for showing him, through words and deeds, what it means to be a Jewish adult in the world.

An Oneg in Jacobs Social Hall followed the service and installation.