Jack Kessler

Jack A. Kessler (1944 – September 20, 2024) was an American hazzan, musician, and educator. After working as a cantor for synagogues for 20 years, he organized several musical ensembles including Atzilut, a group of Jewish and Arab musicians, which toured venues around the world including the United Nations. He also adopted the practice of chanting trop for haftarah and other biblical texts in both Hebrew and English to make the text more vivid and alive for synagogue worshippers.

Early life and education Kessler was born in 1944 and grew up in Boston. His parents had immigrated to the United States in 1941 to escape the Nazis. As a teenager in the 1950s, Kessler played folk music on his guitar, but became interested in pursuing Jewish spiritual singing. and graduated from the Miller Cantorial School of the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1970. He was influenced by the teachings of cantors David Kusevitzky and Max Wohlberg, as well as the recordings of Leib Glantz. In 1985, he moved to Philadelphia, where he served as hazzan at Germantown Jewish Centre and later Temple Sholom. The band's name is drawn from Kabbalah, which describes four worlds or levels of spiritual energy, Atzilut being the highest. In 1993, members of Atzilut were having dinner at a restaurant where Arab musicians in the band Firkat Alamal: Band of Hope were performing. The two groups started playing together and realized they enjoyed making music with each other. Soon after this concert they combined into one band and continued playing together at venues such as the New York Folk Festival, the Copenhagen Opera House in Denmark, He also taught cantorial students At a conference in Berlin, he chanted verses in Hebrew while Cantor Jalda Rebling chanted them in German.

Selected publications

Personal life Kessler lived with his wife Rabbi Marcia Prager in Philadelphia. Both are leaders in the Jewish Renewal movement and members of Congregation P'nai Or where Prager is the rabbi. Kessler died at the age of 79 on September 20, 2024.