Cantor Martin Feldman opens a closet door in his office and pulls out a dark blue robe.
It’s a bit frayed around the edges and Feldman’s dry cleaner has warned him that it can’t take another cleaning. But Feldman doesn’t mind.
He still wears this cantor’s robe — a gift given to him 44 years ago by the congregation that inspired him to pursue this career.
Feldman, the longest-serving cantor in the Bay Area, is now celebrating 36 years at San Francisco’s Congregation Sherith Israel. He considers the robe a good-luck charm somewhat akin to Luciano Pavarotti’s handkerchief. He also admits that his attachment to the garment springs from a bit of good old-fashioned sentimentality.
“It’s just because they gave it to me,” he said.
Feldman, a slim 68-year-old with a powerful voice and no immediate plans to retire, relaxes in his office on a Thursday morning.
An upright piano stands against one wall. Another wall, equipped with a ladder on wheels, has floor-to-ceiling shelves stocked with Jewish texts and music books. Cassettes, records and sheet music fill every nook and tabletop in the room.
In some ways, this office is an extension of Feldman’s childhood home in Newark, N.J. The cantor recalls that his family was constantly singing or playing their mandolins and harmonicas. As a boy, Feldman even became an alto in a local Orthodox choir.
“There was always music in our house,” he said.
In spite of such deep musical roots, Feldman doesn’t revise his personal history.
“I never saw myself becoming a cantor,” he said, explaining that he didn’t believe he had either the religious background or the proper voice for such a career.
That changed in the early 1950s after he attended teacher’s college and music school. One night he was preparing to sing tenor in a professional quartet at a New Jersey synagogue when the cantor fell ill. Feldman was asked to fill in. After the service, someone came up to him and said, “Cantor, you have a beautiful voice.”
His future began to crystallize and he enrolled in Hebrew Union College’s School of Sacred Music.
“I was ready for a direction,” he said. “This was a way to connect me to music and be a perennial student and connect to something bigger than myself.”
He came to Sherith Israel in 1960, after two years at a New York congregation.
Though Feldman doesn’t pretend his line of work is without tsuris, he looks back fondly nonetheless.
In addition to singing at countless services and events, he has prepared at least 1,500 children and 200 adults for their b’nai mitzvah. He has organized major musical events for the synagogue, such as a performance of Broadway hits by Jewish composers. He has officiated at funerals. And he has officiated at weddings, including those of his daughter, Debbie, and his son, Daniel.
Last month, the Reform congregation celebrated Feldman’s “double chai” anniversary with a dinner for 600 at the Westin St. Francis Hotel.
“I knew every single person in that room,” he recalled with a wide smile.
During the event, guests were asked to raise their hands if they or their children had prepared for their b’nai mitzvah with Feldman. Nearly everyone in the banquet room lifted their hands into the air.
“That’s the dividend of long tenure,” he said.
Others have noticed Feldman’s dedication to his students and the 1,400-household synagogue.
“He’s marvelously empathetic and sympathetic to the kids he works with on bar and bat mitzvahs,” said Joseph Portnoy, cantor emeritus of San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El. “He’s a wonderful, amiable guy. I envy the ease with which he relates to people.”
Sherith Israel’s Rabbi Martin Weiner, who has worked with Feldman for nearly a quarter-century, said he has “always been able to rely on Martin’s deep sense of professionalism and personal integrity.”
And Jane Wattenberg, whose son recently celebrated his bar mitzvah, said she loves Feldman’s voice.
“He can sing so tenderly,” she said.
Feldman himself is still in awe of music and continues to take monthly voice lessons.
“Music has great power to soothe the soul, to inspire, to create within oneself an aura of spirituality,” he said.
His love of dramatic music shows through most clearly when he notes the highlights of his tenure at Sherith Israel.
The first memory to cross his mind was his 30th anniversary fete at the synagogue, when he served as the principal soloist of Ernest Bloch’s “Avodat Hakodesh,” or “Sacred Service,” against the backdrop of a 30-piece orchestra.
“It’s most cantors’ dream to sing that service,” he said. “When I retire, I’d like to do that one more time.”