Over the years, congregants of Congregation Beth Israel-Judea have had many opportunities to see Cantor Henry Greenberg get choked up.
He does it at weddings. He does it at b’nai mitzvah. He does it at baby-namings. And he did it in his cluttered office recently, as he talked about being honored for 25 years of service to the San Francisco synagogue. Several hundred people joined in the tribute on Saturday evening.
A few CDs were scattered on his desk, from Shostakovich to Barbra Streisand. One wall was decorated with 25 years of mementos, including pictures from various Israel trips, a caricature of “Cantor Henry” from Adam Turner’s 1987 bar mitzvah and a card congratulating him on his new job, the very job he still holds today.
The woman who gave him that card has since passed away. And in fact, walk around the synagogue with Greenberg, and he’ll point to plaque after plaque in memory of people who have died, people he knew personally.
The 77-year-old cantor was feted seven years ago, for his 18th anniversary at the synagogue. Not only was it a big honor, he said, but it brought Greenberg, whose wife, Rachel, of 44 years had died recently, together with a congregant named Nancy, who designed the tribute book for that occasion; they’ve now been married for six years.
“I told them, ‘Don’t feel like you have do something for my 25th, it’s not necessary,'” the cantor said. “But all right. I feel honored.”
Referring to himself as “a local boy,” Greenberg grew up attending Kol Yakov, a former Orthodox shul in San Francisco. “Seven days a week, I was there,” he said.
He conducted services for the first time when he was 8. One of Beth Israel-Judea’s Torahs is decorated with crowns from that synagogue.
While Greenberg never set out to become a cantor, he is of the old school that grew up steeped in Jewish tradition and was never formally trained.
When he was 20, he began serving as cantor, and became an assistant at the Conservative Congregation Beth Israel in 1952.
“The man there had a heart attack the day before Rosh Hashanah,” he said. “And that began my professional career.”
Over the years, Greenberg worked in the grocery business and then later, he sold insurance. He became the cantor at Daly City’s Congregation B’nai Israel in 1968, while continuing to work in the insurance business.
In 1975, he returned to B’nai Israel, which had merged with Temple Judea, a Reform synagogue a few years earlier.
The synagogue is affiliated with both the Conservative and Reform movements, and Greenberg is a member of both the Reform American Conference of Cantors and the Conservative Cantors Assembly.
The cantor takes a pill each day to help his voice, and said, “I think the voice is stronger than it was 10 or 15 years ago.”
What keeps him on the job is that “I love working with the youngsters, and I’m a real people person.”
A tear began to fall as Greenberg spoke of how lucky he has been over the years, repeatedly talking about his children and grandchildren.
One son, Rabbi David Greenberg, will soon be honored for 25 years at his congregation in New York.
On his answering machine at home, the outgoing message says, “Let’s not forget to count our blessings.”
“The biggest problem I have is I don’t have enough time to count my blessings,” he said. “Being here is a blessing.”
Gesturing to the ceiling, he said, “He’s been good to me. The congregation has been good to me. The rabbis and the presidents have been good to me, everyone has been very supportive, warm and friendly.”
Rabbi Evan Goodman, spiritual leader of Beth Israel-Judea for the past two years, said that when he began there, he was a bit nervous about working with someone who was “such an integral part of the congregation.” But Greenberg quickly put him at ease.
“I felt so welcome and supported,” Goodman said. “Cantor Greenberg has been so willing to teach me the traditions of the congregation, and so eager to try new things and to develop our own personal relationship and our relationship as colleagues.”
Goodman continued, “It’s remarkable that a man who has been here so many years and of his age can so rapidly and lovingly adapt to these circumstances. I think that speaks very highly of his character, that he’s a man who is at home in any generation.”
In good health, Greenberg said that for now, he has no plans to retire. And as if to prove his cantorial mettle, he pulled out an elongated shofar, the very same one that’s been at the synagogue as long as he has, and let out a resounding tekiyah gedolah.