Rabbi Cantor Gershon Silins

Gershon Silins is Liberal Judaism’s first rabbi cantor. He previously served as cantor of Temple Sinai Congregation, Toronto; at Temple Avodah, Oceanside, New York; Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple, New Brunswick, New Jersey; Beth Emet The Free Synagogue, Evanston, Illinois and Temple Emanuel, Kensington, Maryland. He has also taught cantorial studies at the Abraham Geiger College Cantorial School in Berlin and the Levisson Institute in Amsterdam.

Gershon Silins has also been an active freelance singer in the worlds of concert and opera, including appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under James Levine, Carlo Maria Giulini, and Sir George Solti, and with the Brooklyn Philharmonic under Lukas Foss. He also sang with the Maryland Handel Festival in the role of Simon in Handel’s Judas Maccabeus with the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Paul Traver.

Silins’s essay, “The Discussion of Music in Lawrence A. Hoffman’s The Art of Public Prayer” appeared in The CCAR Journal (scholarly journal of the Central Conference of American Rabbis). He served on the Board of the American Conference of Cantors, the professional organization of cantors associated with the Reform Movement in North America, and on the Joint Commission on Worship, Music and Religious Living of the Union for Reform Judaism in the US.

He received the degree of Master of Sacred Music from the School of Sacred Music of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, where he was ordained as a cantor. In 2015, Cantor Silins received the degree of Doctor of Sacred Music (honoris causa) by Hebrew Union College, marking his contributions to the American cantorate, twenty-five years after his ordination.
Cantor Silins was ordained as a rabbi by Leo Baeck College in July 2019.