Keynote speakers

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Mark Kligman is the inaugural holder of the Mickey Katz Endowed Chair in Jewish Music and Professor of Ethnomusicology and Musicology at UCLA in the Herb Alpert School of Music.  From 1994-2014 he was on the faculty of Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion in New York when he taught in the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music.  He specializes in the liturgical traditions of Middle Eastern Jewish communities and various areas of popular Jewish music.  He has published on the liturgical music of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn in journals as well as his book Maqām and Liturgy: Ritual, Music and Aesthetics of Syrian Jews in Brooklyn (Wayne State University, 2009), which shows the interconnection between the music of Syrian Jews and their cultural way of life. This publication was awarded a 2009 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award Notable Selection, an award of the Association for Jewish Studies. His other publications focus on the intersection of contemporary Jewish life and various liturgical and paraliturgical musical contexts.  He is the Academic chair of the Jewish Music Forum and co-editor of the journal Musica Judaica.  Mark is also a board member of the Association for Jewish Studies.

Eliyahu Schleifer is Emeritus Professor of Sacred Music and Director of the School of Sacred Music at HUC-JIR, Jerusalem. He began his musical training at the age of 5 as a choirboy at the synagogue choir of Shirat Israel Institute and later studied violin and French horn at the New Jerusalem Conservatory of Music. Following his studies in Musicology at Rubin Academy of Music (Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance), where he was also Assistant to Edith Gerson-Kiwi, he continued his studies at the University of Chicago, where he earned his doctorate in Musicology. He served as a teacher and lecturer at Rubin Academy of Music and Tel Aviv University and became professor at the School of Sacred Music, Hebrew Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem, of which he was principal for many years. Professor Schleifer is one of the most important educators and experts for Jewish music throughout the world.  His areas of expertise include in particular the tradition of German-Jewish synagogue music. Among his numerous publications is an anthology of Chassidic music (collected by Chemjo Vinaver). In 2010 he retired and he now continues his research projects on Ashkenazi synagogue music at the Israel National Library and the Jewish Music Research Center of the Hebrew University. He also serves as academic adviser and Director of the Cantorial School of Abraham Geiger Rabbinic College in Berlin. Professor Eliyahu Schleifer is married to the pianist Aya Schleifer and they have two sons, Doron and Uri, who are also musicians.

Jeffrey Summit holds an appointment as Research Professor in the Department of Music and the Judaic Studies Program at Tufts University, where he also serves as Neubauer Executive Director of Tufts Hillel. He is the author of The Lord's Song in a Strange Land: Music and Identity in Contemporary Jewish Worship (Oxford University Press) and with Richard Sobol, co-author of Abayudaya: The Jews of Uganda. He has recorded and compiled a CD for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings entitled Abayudaya: Music from the Jewish People of Uganda that was nominated for a GRAMMY award. He recently released a CD with video entitled Delicious Peace: Coffee, Music and Interfaith Harmony in Uganda (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings) that was awarded Best World Music CD by the Independent Music Awards. He is currently writing on the meaning and experience of the performance of biblical chant in the contemporary Jewish community (Forthcoming, Oxford University Press). Rabbi Summit has written and lectured on the impact of technology on Jewish oral tradition, music and spiritual experience, and the role of advocacy in ethnomusicology. In 2001, he founded the "Abayudaya College Scholarship Project," administered by the elected Abayudaya leadership council, which is presently supporting the college education of twenty Jewish students in Uganda.