Temple Emanuel of South Hills in Pittsburgh, PA found its first fully-ordained Cantor in 50 years – and they just finished their first year on the job.
Kalix Jacobson, originally from St. Louis, Missouri, is one of three nonbinary Cantors, all of whom were ordained from the same cohort in 2023. Jacobson has started their second year with Temple Emanuel of South Hills, with an eventful first year under their belt.
Cantors, for those unfamiliar with the profession, are essentially singing Rabbis, they explain.
“Rabbis and Cantors are both fully ordained clergy professionals with different skill sets,” Jacobson says.
They explain that rabbis and cantors learn about 70-80% of the same material in school, and each clergy track spends its remaining time on specialization; Rabbis focus on texts such as Talmud and Mishnah, which are commentaries on Torah, and Cantors focus on music and liturgy.
Kalix noted that one of their proudest accomplishments from their first year on the job was their Purim spiel, which is a play that Jewish people do yearly, often set to a theme, that retells the events of the Book of Esther.
Jacobson had personally done Purim spiels, but Temple Emanuel had not in recent years. Jacobson hoped to keep this production relevant to the events of the year and decided on a Barbie theme – which paid off.
“It was a huge success,” they share. “We packed our sanctuary; 150 people came, and it was live streamed.” Jacobson had written shows before, but they were always for academic purposes. “So to write a 25 minute Purim spiel and be successful… it was very exciting,” they say.
Jacobson adds that they already have ideas for how to further improve the synagogue’s next Purim spiel and intend to form a committee to write and run the show.
Jacobson hopes to continue with innovative programming at Temple. They intend to start two GSA (Gender and Sexuality Alliance) groups—one for families and one just for adults. The goal of these groups to provide queer community rooted in Jewish values in the South Hills.
Jacobson recalls being told their entire life that they would make a good Cantor. For decades, they were resistant. Originally, they pursued music education, but life circumstances led them to the cantorate.
Jacobson maintained a friendship with a woman from college even after leaving music education school and moving away from that college town. Unfortunately, this friend’s whole family passed away while she was at school, and this friend was the lone survivor. This friend was left with a financial crisis alongside her grief.
“We had an emergency on our hands essentially, and so I did both the fundraising aspect of it, and also what I now understand is the pastoral care element,” Jacobson says.
At 19 years old, Jacobson became the one of the faces of their friend’s fundraising campaign, which soon became a national news story.
“At some point, my best friend was like, listen, this might sound weird, but you’re really good at this, and I really think you should consider doing it for a living,” they recall.
They added that although this path was forged in tragedy and sorrow, it helped them to understand exactly what they value from their profession.
“As much as it’s strange to say, end-of-life-cycle events are some of the most meaningful and powerful to me in my day-to-day job,” they say.
Jacobson shares that this series of events helped them to understand exactly what those who encouraged them to join the cantorate had been saying all those years.
“I had the musical elements, but they weren’t just calling on my voice,” they say. “They were calling on the fact that I had a pastoral presence innately inside of me that would be helpful to the Jewish world. It wasn’t, ‘You’re a good singer and you’re Jewish, you should be a Cantor,’ it was, ‘You are a pastoral presence with a voice, you should be a Cantor.'”
Jacobson comes from a family of musicians, many of whom sing and play music in the Jewish world.
“At one point when I was in Cantorial school and before my Aunt Gwenda retired from this, there was a Jacobson who was leading a Shabbat service in every time zone in America,” they share.
However, despite this, they are the first Cantor in the family.
“I think that describes my entire life,” they say. “I’ve always fallen in line with how things are always done, but I’m going to do it my own way.”
Jacobson would like people to know that they pursued this career because they felt that this is the way that they could best help the world.
“I didn’t do this to blaze a trail,” they explain.
Jacobson shares that this is something that their loved ones have known they were supposed to do since they were three years old, before they had any personal concept of gender. They weren’t trying to be the first anything—this is simply what they were supposed to do.
Jacobson also shares that they do not let their personal beliefs get in the way of a pastoral relationship. Quite the contrary—Jacobson believes that it is imperative to offer care to people of many identities and political affiliations.
“I want people to know that I counsel the homophobe and the transphobe and the racist and the Islamophobe – my job is to counsel them all,” they share. “I know that in a world that is so polarized right now, it’s hard to believe I can come into this in an apolitical way and be a counselor, but that’s my job, and I’m proud of it.”
