Cantor Moshe Stern

חזן משה שטרן

237 songs 24 albums

Moshe Stern is considered as one of the giants of the Cantorate, now that the golden era of chazzanim has passed. The golden era included the incomparable Yossele Rosenblatt, Zevulun Kwartin and Moshe and David Koussevitzky. Akiva Tzimmerman, in his book B’Ron Yahad (Singing Together) states that Moshe Stern would have been included in the golden age had he been alive then. The story of his life is fascinating. He comes from a family steeped in chazzanut. He was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1935. He was the youngest son of the eleven children of Chazzan Yisroel Stern. Seven of these eleven children became chazzanim. Young Moshe performed in public for the first time when he was only seven years old. He was destined to fulfill the hopes that his family had had for his gifted elder brother, Pinchas, who had been a child prodigy, but who died suddenly at twenty-one. Sadly, many of Moshe Stern’s brothers perished, one in World War II, another in the War of Israeli Independence. After surviving the Nazis in Hungary, the rest of the family immigrated to Israel in 1948 after the death of this brother. When the family arrived in Israel, they were put into barracks in Talpiot. From time to time, Yisroel would sing with Moshe in the synagogue there. The writer, Shai Agnon, who lived in Talpiot, was impressed with the davening of Moshe Stern, who was only fifteen years old at that time. When the Heichal Shlomo shul was opened in 1958, he became chief cantor and hundreds used to throng their weekly to hear him sing the prayers. Since the shul could not contain the crowds, the prayers were moved to the entrance hall until the Great Synagogue was completed in 1982. From there he moved to Johannesburg, South Africa and became a very successful chazzan there. In 1968, at the age of thirty-three, he was given the most challenging position in the world for a chazzan, at the Beth El Congregation in Borough Park, New York, where he followed the great Moshe Koussevitzky. He was very successful there, also. The rabbi of the shul, Rabbi Israel Schorr, said of Stern that “As rabbi of the shul I heard the chazanim Mordechai Hershman, Berele Chagy and Moshe Koussevitsky but such a masterful rendition of Malchuyos Zichronos and Shofaros as I heard from Moshe Stern I have never heard before.” Stern served for ten years as the cantor of Beth El before returning to Israel, settling in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem. He would continue to travel for Yomim Noraim to Sao Paolo, Brazil as well as appearing at numerous concerts around the world.