A Conversation with Pioneering Female Cantor Susan Mandell

Presented by the Jewish Music Forum, a Project of the American Society for Jewish Music joins us for a discussion with Susan Mandell, whose cantorial career exemplifies women’s expansion into religious leadership positions in the 1960s. · Cantor Susan Mandell, Temple Emanu-El of Edison, NJ, 1964–1978 · Cantor Kalix Jacobson, Temple Emanuel of South Hills, Pittsburgh, PA · Gordon Dale, Dr. Jack Gottlieb Scholar in Jewish Music Studies, Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, New York, NY A graduate of Douglass College, Susan Mandell was the cantor of Congregation Emanu-El of Edison, New Jersey, for fourteen years in a time before women were formally ordained. As a pioneering woman in the field of Jewish liturgical music, Mandell’s life tells us much about the entry of women into religious leadership roles in the 20th century, a history that is little known. In conversation with Cantor Kalix Jacobson, who discovered Mandell’s story while doing research for a master’s thesis, Mandell will share her experience as one of the only female cantors of the 1960s and 1970s. Ethnomusicologist Gordon Dale will offer historical context for her experience. Cosponsored by the Bildner Center; Douglass Residential College; Department of Music, Mason Gross School of the Arts; Temple Emanu-El of Edison