Because her family belonged to an Orthodox congregation, Linda Hirschhorn could only watch “with envy” as her brothers became b’nai mitzvah.
“I sat up in the balcony,” said Hirschhorn, recalling the bar mitzvah of the youngest of her two brothers. “He was two years older than I was, and I knew his Torah portion just as well as he did.”
But since those early days in Manhattan, Hirschhorn, cantor for Conservative Temple Beth Sholom in San Leandro, has certainly made up for lost time.
While she has not had an official bat mitzvah and does not plan on having one in the future, through 20 years of leading congregations in song, she has chanted from the entire Torah and “covered all the bases.”
“I think this is about as close as I can get,” said Hirschhorn with a laugh. She recently celebrated her 13-year landmark at Temple Beth Sholom. The synagogue commemorated Hirschhorn’s bat mitzvah year with an honorary Shabbat service.
A crowd of 200, including congregants, the local mayor and city council members, gathered for the celebration featuring tributary speeches and a performance by Vocolot, Hirschhorn’s professional group known for it’s a cappella harmonies.
“This was just a nice opportunity for us to say thanks,” said Ron Phillips, the synagogue’s president. “She was very instrumental in keeping our synagogue thriving when we were without a rabbi for almost two years. We’re very lucky to have her.”
But Hirschhorn said the pleasure has been all hers — especially witnessing the plethora of lifecycle events.
“It’s been wonderful to see some of the first students I helped to bar mitzvah now graduating from college and getting married,” said Hirschhorn, who resides in Oakland. “At the same time, some of the children who were first born when I came here are now becoming bar and bat mitzvahs.”
Over the next 13 years she looks forward to continuing her relationships with the community, “one which deepens every year” and hopes to develop one with the synagogue’s new spiritual leader, Rabbi Harry Manhoff, whom she calls “a great mensch and scholar.”
Hirschhorn, a mother of two — Thalia, 15, and Lev, 11 — moved to the Bay Area in 1970 in search of “San Francisco, this marvelous City of Love,” which she’d read about in a New York Times article.
Recruiting “four like-minded, adventurous passengers,” through a bulletin board posting, Hirschhorn embarked on the weeklong journey, driving across the United States in her father’s plain, old Lincoln Continental.
A self-professed Zionist and daughter of Viennese refugees, who has been singing since she was in diapers, Hirschhorn spent 1965 to 1966 and 1967 to 1968 living in Israel, first on a kibbutz and later as a Hebrew University student in Jerusalem.
Once in San Francisco, Hirschhorn added a master’s degree in counseling from San Francisco State University to her undergraduate degree in philosophy. Those degrees have come in handy, she said, when it comes to her role in marriage ceremonies.
“As a cantor I’m often called upon to officiate and sing at weddings,” she said. “Sometimes my skills get extended a bit further and I end up doing some marital counseling.”
One of Hirschhorn’s first jobs in San Francisco was through the Bureau of Jewish Education, leading a course on Jewish choral music for middle school-aged girls. She stumbled upon her current profession of cantor in the 1980s — an occurrence she called “a wonderful mistake.”
“I went in to apply for a position teaching music in the Hebrew school [at Reform Peninsula Temple Beth El in San Mateo],” she said. “They mentioned they were also seeking a cantor, so I applied [as a cantorial soloist]. They hired me on the spot.”
She also served as cantorial soloist at Berkeley’s Kehilla Community Synagogue, where she was one of the founders and continues to offer assistance, and at Los Gatos’ Reform Congregation Shir Hadash.
Hirschhorn officially became a cantor, rather than a cantorial soloist, about five years ago when she underwent her exam with the Cantor’s Assembly, a professional arm of the Conservative movement. She was installed in 1997 during the 50th anniversary convention of the chazzanim in Chicago.
In addition to joining Beth Sholom 13 years ago, Hirschhorn also formed Vocolot. The all-female singing group has since risen to international fame. It’s known for its peace-and-social-justice-oriented music, carried on three CDs. Hirschhorn, who also has three albums of her own, writes most of the music and says she is usually inspired by liturgy and prophetic texts, as well as by contemporary poetry.
Vocolot, which recently performed at Linnud, a Jewish conference in Nottingham, England, also sent a demo compact disc containing three songs of peace aimed at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to local and national radio stations. It has been getting airplay nationwide.
“Growing up I attended yeshiva, labor Zionist youth camps and representative social camps of all sorts, which sort of influenced my political, feminist, Judaic interests,” said Hirschhorn. “I eventually wove all of that together into my music.”