Sarah Sager, Cantor Laureate
Sarah Sager, the first invested Cantor in our temple’s history, has served the community of Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple for 40 years! Serving three generations of congregants, Cantor Sager devotion to the Fairmount Temple community continues in her new role, Cantor Laureate.
As Cantor Laureate, Cantor Sager, when requested and as her calendar allows, will participate in lifecycle events. She is planning on expanding her Wise Aging learning cohort and continuing to support the work of the Women of Fairmount Temple. We are pleased to be able to continue with Cantor Sager over these next few years in such a special role.
A native of Illinois, Cantor Sager received Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude honors as an undergraduate at Brown University, and a Master’s Degree from the New England Conservatory of Music. At the time of her investiture by the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, she was one of the first women in the world to hold the title of Cantor.
Her stirring charge to the 1993 Biennial Convention of the Women of Reform Judaism in San Francisco, “Sarah’s Hidden Voice: Recovering and Discovering Women’s Spirituality,” resulted in WRJ undertaking the project of a transformative publication, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary (published in 2007), which has engendered feminist commentary and a growth in interpretations and scholarship. Cantor Sager “charged” the women of our Reform movement with the goal of “uncovering and recovering women’s voices from our tradition and enable women to interact freely with our sacred texts in the future.”
Cantor Sager has been honored for her contributions to the Jewish community and for her spiritual leadership by the State of Israel Bonds, and the Commission for Women’s Equality of the American Jewish Congress. She is proud to have served on movement-wide commissions on Synagogue Music and on Worship, Music and Religious Life.
- Click here to watch a personal message from Cantor Sager.
- Cantor Sager is profiled in Beachwood Buzz about her tenure at Fairmount Temple.
