Since at least the 50’s, we have been a singing congregation blessed with a lot of kids. We tend to think of a boom in children that went with the end of World War II, but in the years of the the Second World War, St. Catharines was already experiencing a boom in the number of children in the Hebrew School and the emphasis on the part of their parents was to provide programming as much as possible to help the young people feel part of the congregation and strengthen Jewish identity. The picture below is of the first choir formed to add interest in services and maintain a strong religious school program. The teacher ws the cantor of the day, Joseph Ben-Gali, and these were all teenagers in the Hebrew School in the middle 1950’s.
Of course, once the baby boomers came along, it became obvious that the number of children in the choir would grow and it would mean a much bigger undertaking. Not only were the school kids formed into a choir, but it was led by a mother of some of the young people in the community and the choir became important not just for services but for holiday celebrations as well. So they would sing at Yom HaAtzmaut, Channukah and so forth. In the picture below, the choir mistress was Aida Herzog and the children were all within a year or two of each other. Notice the difference in not just size of the choir but also the ages of the members.
The choir below represents our most recent attempt to add something extra to our services. In this case, all the members are no longer children, no longer even middle aged, most of them. The choir Mistress, Maya Chriqui, is also a volunteer and while working full time she and her choir find the time to practice after hours most of the time. They are adding wonderful new sounds to our services and when new folks show up and hear the choir singing, the new folks in turn often volunteer to join up. We are so lucky that we have a congregation that likes to sing and supports things like choirs to deepen the experience of Shabbat and Chag observances.
