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Jewish World Review Jan. 8, 1999 / 19 Teves, 5758
Chana Shavelson
"The Cantors Bill," as it has come to be called, adds the Jewish cantor (or liturgy singer)
to the list of ministers, Imams, Quaker clergy and representatives of the
Baha’is that may currently perform marriage ceremonies under Massachusetts
law.
Sponsored by Rep. Harriette L. Chandler (D-Worcester), in the House and by
Sen. Cheryl Jacques (D-Needham), in the Senate, the bill has been in process
for more than a year and a half. The new law extends the right to officiate at
marriages to what it calls "a commissioned cantor."
Chandler clarifies that
this refers only to those cantors who have been ordained at either Hebrew
Union College or Jewish Theological Seminary, representative of the Reform and
Conservative movements respectively.
The bill also boasts a non-discriminatory clause that expands the new law to
include "any church or religious organization."
"For the first time," says Cantor Stephen Freedman, past president of the
Jewish Ministers/Cantors Association of New England and cantor at Congregation
Beth Israel in Worcester, the cantor will be "a recognized clergy person of
the Jewish faith ..., acknowledged in a legal way."
"A knowledgeable, competent person fills out the Kesubah [wedding contract]," says Freedman. "The
Kesubah must be witnessed by two qualified witnesses," and in non-Orthodox Judaism, it is often the
rabbi and cantor together who serve as witnesses. The legislative component of the
cantor problem, he says, is only necessary to complete the civil aspect of the
ceremony.
Cantor Louise Treitman, new president of the Jewish Ministers/Cantors
Association and cantor at Temple Beth David in Westwood, expresses her
pleasure at getting the bill through the House.
"Many other states have such a
bill in place," she says. However, both she and Freedman do not believe the
cantor’s role will significantly change as a result of the new bill.
Treitman
maintains that the "cantor’s role in the congregation is already that of
clergy."
Like a rabbi, a non-Orthodox cantor may meet with couples intending marriage in a
religious capacity and fulfill other clerical functions.
Responding to the concern that the bill will encourage more mixed marriages,
Treitman claims that it will not. "This won’t change general policy," she
says, explaining that those cantors who would have co-officiated with a rabbi
at such ceremonies will merely continue to do so on their own after the
passage of the bill — and those who would not have co-officiated will
continue to censure such unions.
Chandler, who has seen the bill through the House in its several
incarnations, says that it has met with little opposition on its journeys,
except in its qualification of what kind of cantor the law refers to.
An
"invested or certified or duly ordained" cantor in previous versions of the
bill has now become a much-abridged "commissioned." The rights of the added
clergy member under the new law, however, are the same. In the words of
Treitman, the bill "legalizes one more aspect of the cantor’s life already in
existence" and represents, according to Chandler, "a step for
In Bay State, secular Jews no longer need rabbis to be married religiously
In Bay State, and elsewhere,
observant, believing Jews
will only be married by rabbinic figures
Chana Shavelson is a staff reporter for Boston's
Jewish Advocate.
