Jean Gornish

Jean Gornish (1916–1981), known as "Sheindele di Chazante", was a chazante, a female performer of Jewish cantorial and liturgical music. She is often called the first female chazan.[1]

Life

Gornish was born in 1916 in Philadelphia. As a child, she was run over by a garbage truck, but survived unhurt.[2] Despite offers of work as a nightclub singer after her high school graduation, by 1936 she had committed herself exclusively to cantorial music. She took the stage name "Sheindele di Chazante".[3]

Gorlish's manager, Ben Gottleib, arranged for her to perform regularly on the radio on Sundays after the news broadcast. She was unable to perform in orthodox synagogues, which prohibited female performers.[2]

By the early 1940s, Sheindele's had signed an exclusive contract with the Planters Peanut Company, which allowed her to organize a touring schedule and radio programs in Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago, performing in theaters such as the 3,000-seat Orchestra Hall in Chicago and the Milwaukee Auditorium.[3]

Sheindele performed in traditional cantorial garb - a satin robe and a skullcap, either black or High Holiday white.[3]

References
  1. Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies. Research Library; Monique Bourque; R. Joseph Anderson (1 January 1992). A guide to manuscript and microfilm collections of the Research Library of the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies. The Institute. p. 69.
  2. Allen Meyers (10 September 1998). The Jewish Community of South Philadelphia. Arcadia Publishing. p. 129. ISBN 978-1-4396-1854-7.
  3. Ari Y. Kelman (27 May 2009). Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio in the United States. Univ of California Press. pp. 123–214. ISBN 978-0-520-25573-9.
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