North Shore cantors sing at Vatican celebration of Israeli ties

Janelle Clausen
Cantors Raphael Frieder, Ofer Barnoy and Nathan Lam, pictured here with Ambassador Oren David and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, performed in a concert at the Great Synagogue celebrating 25 years of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel. (Photo courtesy of Raphael Frieder)
Cantors Raphael Frieder, Ofer Barnoy and Nathan Lam, pictured here with Ambassador Oren David and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, performed in a concert at the Great Synagogue celebrating 25 years of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel. (Photo courtesy of Raphael Frieder)

When Cantor Raphael Frieder received an invite from his native Israel to perform in Rome as part of a celebration of diplomatic relations between Israel and the Vatican, he felt a wave of excitement.

It was thrilling personally for him as an Israeli. He also recognized the importance. But what also resonated for him, he said, was that he had worked with the late Rabbi Mordecai Waxman of Temple Israel – a member of a committee that “paved the way for the diplomatic relationship with Israel” a quarter of a century earlier.

“It was doubly significant for me that I’m invited, 25 years later, to participate in an event that one of its architects was Rabbi Waxman,” Frieder said.

Frieder was one of two cantors from the North Shore to perform in the Great Synagogue of Rome June 13, the other being Cantor Ofer Barnoy of Temple Beth Shalom in Roslyn.

They and Cantor Nathan Lam of Stephen Wise Temple in Los Angeles, along with their Italian counterparts, sang before an audience of hundreds that included dignitaries like Oren David, Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican, and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who is only second to the Pope in the Catholic Church.

“It was a very moving experience to be in the midst of all the dignitaries from the Vatican,” Barnoy said. “I do a lot of concerts, usually for Jewish audiences, so this was different.”

Frieder said the venue, the largest synagogue in Rome, was “magnificent” and offered amazing acoustics for a cooperative performance filled with Psalms, prayer and a distinct Italian flavor.

Cantor Raphael Frieder of Temple Israel of Great Neck was among a handful of cantors to perform at the Great Synagogue in Rome, as part of an event celebrating diplomatic ties between the Vatican and Israel. (Photo courtesy of Raphael Frieder)
Cantor Raphael Frieder of Temple Israel of Great Neck was among a handful of cantors to perform at the Great Synagogue in Rome, as part of an event celebrating diplomatic ties between the Vatican and Israel. (Photo courtesy of Raphael Frieder)

“They have unique music for the Italian people that is very different from what we do here,” Frieder said. “It’s not Ashkenazi, it’s not Sephardic – it’s Italian.”

For Barnoy, it was not his first encounter with the Vatican. He and a delegation of 40 cantors, rabbis and Jewish leaders met with Pope John Paul II in 2006 to thank him for being the first pope to visit Israel since its founding in 1948, he said.

The relationship between the Catholic and Jewish people has evolved over the last 2,000 years, Barnoy said. Following the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, the Romans enslaved many Jews, he said, but many families remained after and came to thrive.

The first decades of between the Vatican and Israel were also “tenuous” and there had been a “certain distance” between them for “political and religious reasons,” he said, before an Israeli embassy was created.

Full diplomatic relations were established on June 15, 1994.

“It was still a very very special moment to be together with so many dignitaries and have everybody appreciate the significance of this relationship,” Barnoy said.

Frieder said he was “very moved” by how warm everyone was. The concert, conversations with dignitaries, and his few days in Rome also helped to underscore his belief that while people have different ways to worship, they’re all “children of God in a way.”

“I feel I have a lot of respect and feelings of friendship and closeness to people from other religions,” Frieder said, “and it became clearer when we interacted at the concert and after the concert in our conversations.”

Both Frieder and Barnoy said Lam’s work was critical in organizing the trip and securing their chance to perform.

Asked if would want to return again to Rome to perform, Frieder said he hopes to be able to someday.

“No question about it,” he said.

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