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Jewish music drew Tanya Yasnovsky back into a synagogue.

The San Francisco resident, who immigrated from Russia in 1976 and moved from the East Coast six years ago, was shopping for a new shul when she and her husband attended an event at Congregation Ner Tamid and heard “a lot of beautiful music.” The serenading was courtesy of the West Bay Nigunim Chorus, a Jewish singing group led by Achi Ben Shalom that meets weekly at the Sunset District synagogue.

Yasnovsky decided to join in.

“It’s hard to begin all over again at our age,” she said. “But we fell in love with this little temple because of Achi’s chorus. I first joined the chorus and then joined the temple.” Now she and her husband are “really connected,” attending services and other synagogue activities.

In Russia, where singing is part of the culture, Yasnovsky said, “we were ignorant about who we were as Jews.” Now, she is able to integrate her Jewish identity and her love of singing.

“People come to Judaism in many ways, especially people who immigrate, and not just from wanting knowledge and religion,” she said. “Everyone finds their own way.”

That belief is borne out by a new nationwide study showing that many people not otherwise involved in Jewish life find their way in through their love of Jewish singing.

Those who take part in Jewish choral singing are more likely to give to Jewish needs, volunteer for Jewish causes and belong to synagogues than the American Jewish community in general, according to the survey of more than 2,000 singers, cantors and music lovers.

The West Bay Nigunim Chorus sings in Jerusalem at the Zimriya 2010 World Assembly of Choirs. photo/courtesy of achi ben shalom

The survey was conducted online in May and June on behalf of the Zamir Choral Foundation, the umbrella body for a network of Jewish choral singers and music.

“There is a somewhat faulty assumption that people who sing in Jewish choirs are already engaged in Jewish life,” said Diane Tickton Schuster, a researcher at the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles, who conducted the study with Ezra Kopelowitz, CEO of the Jerusalem-based Research Success Technologies.

“Sometimes, being involved in a Jewish choir is their entry point into Jewish life, and we didn’t know that before,” Schuster said.

Allen Podell of Palo Alto, who helped to found a Jewish choir  seven years ago, said getting others involved in the singing group makes him feel more Jewish.

“I’m not much on pomp and circumstance, and I have problems reciting things like ‘God created the heavens and the earth,’ which I don’t believe,” said Podell, a retired electrical engineer. “But I certainly feel a connection to Judaism through Jewish music. There is a mystery to life, and Jewish music describes it.”

When Lara Torgovnik, 21, started college at New York University as a vocal performance major in 2006, she had little Jewish background — she chose music school over Hebrew school at age 8 with permission from her “very secular” parents — but on a whim one day during her freshman year she Googled “Jew choir.”

That’s how Torgovnik discovered the Zamir Chorale, the New York–based Jewish choir celebrating its 50th anniversary this fall. She auditioned, won acceptance, and on her first day of rehearsal felt overwhelmed by what she said was a “mind-boggling realization that music can be a means of expressing spirituality, and spirituality can lend a deeper level to my music.”

After starting to sing in the Jewish choir, Torgovnik added Jewish studies to her college program. Her experience —  intensifying Jewish engagement while getting involved in Jewish singing — is not unusual, according to the study.

Among the findings, which were compared to figures from the United Jewish Communities’ National Jewish Population Survey 2000-2001: 73 percent of the choral singers said they volunteer under Jewish auspices (vs. 25 percent of the general Jewish population); 73 percent said they give to Jewish causes (vs. 41 percent of the general group); and 88 percent belong to a synagogue (vs. 46 percent of most American Jews).

One middle-age Atlanta man said in his written response to the survey that singing in his local Jewish choir “lets me develop musically, spiritually and Jewishly all at one time.”

Increasing Jews’ sense of connection to each other and their heritage was director Matthew Lazar’s goal when he created the Zamir Choral Foundation 20 years ago.

“The music is the hook, but it’s the identity piece we’re interested in — connecting the text of our people with the music of our people, and doing it in community,” said Lazar.

Lazar and others describe Jewish choirs as one of the few remaining venues where Jews of various religious and political persuasions create something Jewish together. Seventy-one percent of survey respondents said singing in Jewish choirs makes them feel connected to klal Yisrael — the Jewish people.

“Choir is the embodiment of klal Yisrael,” Lazar said. “It’s transdenominational and, even more important today, transpolitical — the only place where pro-Bush and pro-Obama Jews come together.”