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September 10, 1999/29 Elul 5759, Vol. 52, No. 1
Cantorial soloist tackles holiday services
CHRIS GARIFO
Staff Writer
Beth Ami Temple, a small Reform congregation that holds its Friday evening services twice a month at the Palo Cristi Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, doesn't have its own synagogue building, full-time rabbi or even cantor anymore. But Beth Ami has a cantorial soloist, and this year will be the first time she has sung at High Holiday services here in the Valley.
Shelle Witten, 47, says the situation at Beth Ami, where she has been cantorial soloist for 11 months, is very similar to that of the congregation she belonged to in St. Louis before moving back to the Phoenix area eight years ago.
"(Beth Ami) is pretty close because ... what's important to them is being together and lending one another support."
Witten lived in the Valley as a child after her family moved here in the 1960s. She left in 1970 to attend college, eventually earning a bachelor's degree in social work from California State University, Chico. While she was there, the small, multi-denominational synagogue that served the college town lost its cantor, who moved to Israel. Witten stepped in for about two years as cantorial soloist because she loved the music she had grown up with at Beth El Congregation in Phoenix.
She and her son, Zachary, now a 19-year-old student at Arizona State University, lived in Iowa and St. Louis before she returned to Phoenix to work for the Maricopa County Community College District.
Since returning to the Valley, Witten has "sampled" services at various congregations, she says.
Last year, when Seymour Raboy, who had been Beth Ami's cantor since the congregation was founded more than 20 years ago, died unexpectedly shortly before the High Holidays, Witten was asked to take over. She didn't feel comfortable stepping in during the holidays and waited until Simchat Torah last October.
Witten lacks any formal cantorial or musical training. She says she has no more than a preschool understanding of Hebrew, but she is confident she can learn the new music required for what will be her first High Holidays services as a cantorial soloist here.
"For me, it's the melody; the rest are just sounds," she says. "My voice just fits the Jewish religious liturgy melodies very well. ... A lot of the Hebrew melodies are in minor tones, and my voice just fits."
She admits to a few doubts about filling the shoes of Raboy.
"There are times that I think maybe I shouldn't be doing this, but it just makes me try all the harder," Witten says of the position, which doesn't pay a salary but for which she receives an honorarium.
Witten draws some strength from the advice she received from the cantor in Chico.
"I said, 'You know, I don't even know what it is I'm singing,' " she recalls. "He said you can be the most knowledgeable person and know everything, or you can just know the word 'amen,' but you're still praying. And so he made me realize that whatever I might be able to offer, that's good enough."
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