Hazzan

Even in the earliest times the chief qualifications demanded of the hazzan, in addition to knowledge of Biblical and liturgical literature as well as the prayer motifs (Yiddish: שטײַגער, romanized: shtayger), were a pleasant voice and an artistic delivery; for the sake of these, many faults were willingly overlooked.

Maimonides ruled that the hazzan who recited the prayers on an ordinary Shabbat and on weekdays need not possess an appearance pleasing to everybody; he might even have a reputation not wholly spotless, provided he was living a life morally free from reproach at the time of his appointment.

But all these moderations of the rule disappeared on holidays; then an especially worthy hazzan was demanded, one whose life was absolutely irreproachable, who was generally popular, and who was endowed with an expressive delivery.

[6] However many authorities were lenient in this regard, and as long as a cantor was merutzeh l'kehal, desired by the congregation, he was permitted to lead the prayers even on the holiest of days.

[7] Thus, while the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources, the office of the ḥazzan increased in importance with the centuries, evolving a specialized set of skills and becoming a career in itself.

In the last two centuries Jews in a number of European communities, notably Germany and Britain, came to view professionally trained hazzanim as clergy[3] and the hazzan as the deputy rabbi.

After the enlightenment, when European nations gave full citizenship and civil rights to Jews, professionally trained hazzanim were accepted by the secular governments as clergy just as rabbis were.

Many members of the American Conference of Cantors are trained at the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music at Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion in New York.

[16] In 1955, Betty Robbins (born Berta Abramson in 1924, in Greece) was appointed as cantor of Temple Avodah, a Reform congregation in Oceanside, New York.

The great figures of this era include Zavel Kwartin (1874–1953), Moritz Henle (1850–1925), Joseph "Yossele" Rosenblatt (1882–1933), Gershon Sirota (1874–1943), and Leib Glantz.

In the post–World War II period, prominent cantors were Moshe Koussevitzky, David Werdyger, Frank Birnbaum, Richard Tucker and Abraham Lopes Cardozo (1914–2006).

Popular contemporary cantors include Shmuel Barzilai, Naftali Hershtik, Yitzchak Meir Helfgot, Chazzan Avraham Aharon Weingarten, Ari Klein, Yaakov Lemmer, Joseph Malovany, Benzion Miller, Jacob (Jack) Mendelson, Aaron Bensoussan, Aaron Aderet, Alberto Mizrahi, Yaakov Yoseph Stark, Jochen (Yaacov) Fahlenkamp, Meir Finkelstein, Alex Stein, Daniel Gross,[33] Azi Schwartz, Netanel Hershtik and Eli Weinberg.