Female-Cantor’s Prayer: Text and Cantorial Recitative by Eliyahu Schleifer
Arr. for voice and piano by Doron Schleifer
Performers: Cantor Sarah Grabiner (mezzo-soprano), Aya Schleifer (piano)
From the event “Traditional Music for the Reform Synagogue”
At the World Congress of Jewish Studies, August 10, 2022
Video and audio recording: Yuval Amit
'Due to the increase of female cantors in the Reform and Conservative Jewish movements and some egalitarian Orthodox congregations, there is a need for a female version of 'Hin’ni Heani Mimaas' the cantor’s prayer on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur' (Eliyahu Schleifer).
Eliyahu Schleifer adopted the text for female cantors, changing the gender and deleting phrases such as the one describing the ideal cantor wearing a long beard. Instead, he inserted a request that God accept the cantor’s supplications as the prayer of Hannah and the songs of Miriam and Devorah. The melody is written in the improvised-recitative style of Eastern-European Hazzanut with inlays of cantorial motifs and quotes from folk melodies to underline salient words and phrases of the prayer.