Our prayer services are uplifting, participatory and full of song. We weave together a tapestry of traditional nusach (the musical modes in which liturgy is chanted), contemporary chants and settings by composers such as Cantor Linda Hirschhorn and Rabbis Hanna Tiferet and Shefa Gold, as well as hasidic and neo-hasidic melodies.

We pray in unison, in harmony, through rounds, call and response, chanting and through traditional style davenen-- when everyone prayers quietly, but audibly, at their own pace simultaneously. Our congregants are often moved to rise and dance while we’re singing and praying together. Our services are frequently enhanced by outstanding percussive accompaniment and sometimes by guitar, as well.

As our community grows and evolves, so does our music. While honoring the melodies that are known and loved amongst us, we also mindfully incorporate new melodies and liturgy into our services to broaden our internal and our shared prayer experience as a community.

Our repetoire of sacred music and prayersong is largely, but not exclusively, Ashkenazic. We also incorporate a number of Sephardic and Mizrachi melodies into our prayer.

When a particular body of music and liturgy is being introduced, we hold "Songshops," where everyone gathers in the spirit of learning about the prayers and has a chance to practice learning new melodies together. Over the past several years, we've held songshops in preparation for High Holydays, and for learning the music and liturgy of Kabbalat Shabbat to enhance our fabulous Friday night services.

Children attending Kehilla School receive monthly music and prayer classes taught by Shulamit Wise Fairman, our Music Director, and our Musical Prayer Leaders, as well as a weekly opportunity to sing and pray together, led by our School Director, Rabbi Dev Noily, along with various Kehilla School teachers and teen leaders.

Shulamit offers adult education courses several times a year that focus on teaching multiple liturgical and musical versions of many of our daily prayers and Shabbat prayers. These courses provide a wonderful opportunity to deepen your understanding of our prayers, to indulge your love for singing, and to experience the many ways that music can enhance your experience of prayer and awaken your senses. Everyone is welcome!

We have special music events throughout the year, including performances and workshops by local and international Jewish music acts. We have now twice hosted an "instant choir" event that gives Kehilla congregants who seek to sing and perform Jewish choral music an opportunity to be led by acclaimed composers and conductors, Cantor Linda Hirschhorn and Fran Avni. We also have a congregant-led Chanting Group, Kol HaLev ("Voice of the Heart") that meets monthly.

Kehilla was recently honored to have been voted "Best Synagogue Music of the East Bay."  Learn more.

If you have any questions or feedback regarding music at Kehilla, please email Shulamit Wise Fairman, at Shulamit@KehillaSynagogue.org.

Our Musical Prayer Leaders

Shulamit Wise Fairman, Music Director

Shulamit hails from Mid-Missouri, where she began her personal and professional Jewish journey. Graduate studies in Boston led to a freelance career as a prayer leader, educator, and ritual creatrix. B'nai Or, the Jewish renewal community in Boston, became her spiritual home for six years, where she was mentored by her beloved Rabbis, Daniel and Hanna Tiferet Siegel. Since her youth, music and activism have been integral threads in the spiritual matrix of her life. Serving Kehilla since June of 2005, Shulamit continues to weave her vision of community building, personal healing, and world change through music and prayer.

Debbie Fier, Musical Prayer Leader

Debbie Fier brings over 30 years’ experience to her life as a performing vocalist, drummer, pianist, composer, percussionist and teacher. She has studied numerous drum and dance styles for over 25 years — including Middle Eastern, North African, Indian and Afro-Cuban, has taught drumming to individuals and groups, adults and children, and has led many, diverse community drumming circles - musical, educational and spiritual.

Debbie has spent over 20 years exploring voice in many different contexts, including western/classical vocal technique, theory, ear training, improvisation, jazz, meditative chanting and Indian raga singing, as well as exploring and teaching about the healing qualities of music and the voice. Debbie has spent many years studying different forms of spirituality and meditation. Over the past 6 years, she has found a home at Kehilla Community Synagogue as a spiritual leader through drumming. For more information about classes, workshops, recordings and performances, go to www.DebbieFier.com

Beth Dickinson, Musical Prayer Leader

  Beth has been a joyous participant at Kehilla for the last 20 years, appreciating Kehilla’s emphasis on both social justice and on music as a spiritual pathway.  In her capacity as a Musical Prayer Leader, she has led Shabbat services and co-led High Holydays Services, as well as weddings, b’nai mitzvah services and other lifecycle events.

Beth started her musical journey as a flautist and became a vocalist in her early 20’s, singing with Molly Holm’s Oakland Jazz Choir.  She has led prayer and ritual singing in a variety of Jewish and non-Jewish settings. She is currently focusing on music as a healing force via the music therapy and sound healing program at the California Institute for Integral Studies (CIIS). 

Beth has studied with local cantorial leader Julie Batz, Shulamit Wise Fairman, and vocalists Linda Tillery, Molly Holm and Carey Sheldon. 

Pamela Gordon, Musical Prayer Leader

Pamela Joy Gordon’s childhood home brimmed with music; she started singing at age 3--mistaking “Camelot” for “Pamela.”  From ages 11-22, she sang in choruses--often taking solo parts, performed in Fiddler on the Roof and La Traviata, was president of her college chorus, and taught music theory.  In her 20s, Pam sang at weddings and Bar/Bat Mitzvot, in her 30s joined Kehilla and Rosalind Glazer’s Chug Shira, and ever since has led musical prayer at services and lifecycle events.  Her primary career is helping high-tech companies to reduce their ecological footprints.  Pam’s Hebrew name is Rina, meaning joyous song. Pam has studied with Cantors Linda Hirschhorn, Jack Kessler, and Richard Kaplan, and also Felicia Sloin and especially Shulamit Wise Fairman. She has written several liturgical songs, and plays piano, percussion, ukulele, and guitar.

Edie Murphy, Musical Prayer Leader

Edie Murphy has been one of the musical prayer leaders at Kehilla since about the year 2000. She is also a Physical Therapist in private practice in Oakland, and sings in a quartet of women called Treble Makers. She grew up in a minimally observant conservative Jewish household with parents who felt the need to rebel against their more observant upbringings. However, in high school, she found a sense of belonging to a community in USY, the conservative movement youth group. Since she was female, her parents saw no need for Bat Mitzvah, so this was a present sheI gave to herself in her 50th year. It was a real opportunity to deepen her relationship to prayer and leadership in services. Learning trope was delightful experience that gave her a way in to Torah study and to prayer. 

Edie has been a member of Kehilla since 1991, when her son Gabe was born. Joining a Chavurah made her family feel even more a part of the community. The more she has participated in Kehilla activities and committees over the years, the more she has come to feel that she truly comes home when she steps through the doors.

Julie Nesnansky, Musical Prayer Leader

Julie Nesnansky has been a Cantorial Soloist at Kehilla for the past 8 years, and is a proud member of the Musical Prayer Leader/Spiritual Leader team. In addition to co-leading Shabbat and holiday services, she teaches songs and some percussion instruments to students in the Hebrew School, and has co-written and performed songs in honor of several service leaders over the years. She leyns (chants) from the torah during High Holy Day services and at various Shabbat services throughout the year. She has taught trope (the torah chanting system) to several students for their Bar/Bat Mitzvahs.

For 20 years, Julie has been a Special Education Teacher in the West Contra Costa Unified School District, currently working with preschool students who have autism. She has also taught students with special needs at Temple Beth Abraham (TBA) in Oakland, and for one year taught TBA’s 5th graders to sing their synagogue’s Friday night service.

Julie has performed in folk, Balkan, and jazz groups, singing (and playing the acoustic folk bass) in venues as varied as folk festivals, birthday parties, weddings, memorial services, fundraisers, clubs, retirement parties, and classes. She has sung publicly for 30 years, and has been recorded on half a dozen albums. Born and raised in Southern California, she has lived in Oakland for 25 years, the last 16 with her beloved husband, Allan Creighton.