A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish musician or precentor trained in the vocal arts who leads the congregation in songful prayer. In English, this prayer leader is often referred to as a cantor, a term also used in Christianity.
Branko Lustig was a Croatian film producer best known for winning Academy Awards for Best Picture for Schindler's List and Gladiator. He is the only person born in the territory of present-day Croatia to have won two Academy Awards.
Moishe Oysher was an American cantor, recording artist, and film and Yiddish theatre actor. During the 1940s and 1950s he was one of the top Hazzans and his recordings continue to be appreciated due to his rich, powerful voice and creative arrangements.
Sigmund Mogulesko — Yiddish: זעליק מאָגולעסקאָZelik Mogulesko, first name also sometimes spelled as Zigmund, Siegmund, Zelig, or Selig, last name sometimes spelled Mogulescu — was a singer, actor, and composer in the Yiddish theater in New York City. He was born in Kalarash, Bessarabia and began singing in the local synagogue choir. Before reaching adolescence, he was paid nearly three times what teachers made, to sing in the synagogue of Chişinău. Soon after moving to Bucharest, Romania, he was paid to sing in churches as well as synagogues, and started acting.
David "Dudu" Fisher is an Israeli cantor and performer, best known for his Broadway performance as Jean Valjean in the musical Les Misérables.
The First Roumanian-American Congregation, also known as Congregation Shaarey Shomayim, or the Roumanishe Shul, was an Orthodox Jewish congregation that, for over 100 years, occupied a historic building at 89–93 Rivington Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York.
Leo Fuchs was a Polish-born American actor. According to YIVO, he was born Avrum Leib Fuchs in Warsaw; according to Joel Schechter, he was born in Lwów, Galicia, then Poland, now called Lviv, Ukraine.
David is a 1979 West German film by director Peter Lilienthal. It tells the story of a rabbi's son in Germany during the Holocaust, who tries to raise money to escape to Mandate Palestine.
Jewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish people. There exist both traditions of religious music, as sung at the synagogue and domestic prayers, and of secular music, such as klezmer. While some elements of Jewish music may originate in biblical times, differences of rhythm and sound can be found among later Jewish communities that have been musically influenced by location. In the nineteenth century, religious reform led to composition of ecclesiastic music in the styles of classical music. At the same period, academics began to treat the topic in the light of ethnomusicology. Edward Seroussi has written, "What is known as 'Jewish music' today is thus the result of complex historical processes". A number of modern Jewish composers have been aware of and influenced by the different traditions of Jewish music.
Benzion Miller is a cantor, schochet and mohel (circumciser), as was his father, Aaron Daniel Miller. He was born in a displaced persons camp in Fernwald, Germany.
Louis Harry Danto was a lyric tenor and cantor. He was acclaimed for his cantorial music, concert appearances and recordings of Italian, Russian, and French opera repertoire. Danto performed throughout North America, Europe and Israel, and recorded 24 solo albums.
Marcel Lang was a Swiss chazan (cantor) and singer (tenor).
Alexander Olshanetsky was an American composer, conductor, and violinist. He was a major figure within the Yiddish theatre scene in New York City from the mid-1920s until his death in 1946.
The New York Jewish Film Festival (NYJFF) is an annual festival in New York City that features a wide array of international films exploring themes related to the Jewish experience. The Jewish Museum and The Film Society of Lincoln Center work in partnership to present the NYJFF every January. Since its creation in 1992, the festival has more than doubled in size and scope. Screenings are typically followed by discussions with directors, actors and film experts. Audience participation is encouraged.
Louis "Leibele" Waldman was a Jewish cantor (“chazzan”), composer and actor, the only American born cantor who may be considered as belonging to the great cantors of the so-called "golden age of jewish cantorial music".
Sybil Ann Sheridan is a writer and British Reform rabbi. She was chair of the Assembly of Reform Rabbis UK at the Movement for Reform Judaism from 2013 to 2015 and was Rabbi at Wimbledon and District Synagogue in south west London. As of 2020 she is part-time rabbi at Newcastle Reform Synagogue.
Yaakov ("Yanky") Lemmer is an American Chazzan and performing artist. Lemmer performs traditional Hebrew liturgy, Yiddish folk, opera, Broadway, Israeli, and Hasidic music.
The Jewish community of Oldenburg in northwest Germany was established as early as the 14th century. It existed consecutively ever since, except for occasion deportations by the local rulers of the Duchy of Oldenburg and the Holocaust, which annihilated the majority of Jews left in the city in the 1930s. Nevertheless, after the Holocaust, Jewish survivors have returned and resettled in the Oldenburg Jewish community, which nowadays operates actively within the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the fastest growing Jewish community in the world.
Shulem Lemmer, known professionally simply as "Shulem," is an American Belz Hasidic singer from Borough Park, Brooklyn, in New York City. He is the first born-and-raised Charedi Jew to sign a major record contract with a leading label, Universal Music Group, under its classical music Decca Gold imprint.
Florence Weiss was a Russian-born American Yiddish theatre, Vaudeville and film actor, recording artist, and soprano who was active from the 1920s to the 1960s. She worked and performed with such artists as Moishe Oysher, Alexander Olshanetsky, Boris Thomashefsky, Fyvush Finkel, and Abe Ellstein. The height of her popularity was during the 1930s, when she often toured and performed with her then-husband, Moishe Oysher, and appeared in three Yiddish-language films with him: The Cantor's Son, The Singing Blacksmith, and Overture to Glory.
