Hallie Weiner moved to the Philadelphia area from Dallas in June to take over as cantor at Old York Road Temple-Beth Am. She succeeded Cantor Elena Zarkh, who served in the role for 41 years.

For Weiner, it was the culmination of a personal and professional journey that took her from her native Los Angeles to the Chicago area, France, LA again, Texas and finally Philadelphia.

The cantor moved to the area with her family.

“We love our new house. We love our new neighborhood. We’re across the street from a park. We’re missing in-law support. It’s a big adventure,” she said.

Los Angeles and the Chicago Area

Weiner’s father was the cantor at Temple Beth Hillel in the Los Angeles area.

“So I grew up at temple,” she said.

Congregants would ask her if she wanted to become a cantor as well.

“To which I vehemently said no,” she recalled.

But she connected with music, studying vocal performance at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, near Chicago.

France

After graduating from Northwestern, Weiner moved to France to study opera. She ended up living there for five years.

Along the way, Weiner met her future husband. Both were American students studying music. He was a jazz bassist.

They couldn’t stay after his visa ran out and he was unable to renew it.

“So we moved back to the United States,” Weiner said.

LA Again

They moved to the LA area, and Weiner found work in the Jewish community as a songleader and b’nai mitzvah tutor, among other responsibilities.

Her future husband taught himself coding and became a software engineer, which allowed him to work from home.

“I started showing him all this music. He said, ‘You love this. Why aren’t you doing this?’ That was kind of the ‘aha!’ moment,” Weiner recalled.

She enrolled in the Academy for Jewish Religion, California, knowing that the school would not ordain her if she had a non-Jewish spouse.

Weiner later took a leave of absence from school, and the couple moved to Texas.

Texas

Weiner found a youth director role at Temple Shalom in Dallas and tutoring gigs at two other synagogues. But when the cantor at one of them, Vicky Glikin of Temple Emanu-El, learned that she had been a cantorial student, the hazzan gave the future hazzan a more cantorial type of role.

“She asked if I would be open to leading Saturday morning services every so often. I said, ‘Of course,’ which then led to me being the quote, unquote cantorial intern,” Weiner recalled.

She ultimately took on what she described as “a cobbled-together position” in which she served as choir assistant, led the b’nai mitzvah program and oversaw the yahrzeit list, among other responsibilities.

“Little by little, I started taking classes. I had two children. I was working full-time. I was slow-walking the school thing,” Weiner said.

She was able to complete her ordination online through the Academy for Jewish Religion, California, in 2024 because the school had changed its policy on non-Jewish spouses.

“Now I am ordained and fully recognized. I am so excited. It’s such a joy,” she said.

Philadelphia

When Weiner started looking for a role as a spiritual leader of a synagogue, she applied to the opening at Beth Am, where Zarkh was planning her retirement. During her interview, Weiner felt that the connection was strong.

“You know that expression? When you know, you know? With Beth Am, it was like that,” she told Philadelphia Jewish Exponent in June.

She especially liked that Sherrie Turetsky, the synagogue’s executive director said that, “‘The way we make our staff feel appreciated is we find out how each staff member likes to receive appreciation, and then we do that.’”

“It was perfect,” Weiner said.

jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com