Cantor Jack Chomsky has served at Congregation Tifereth Israel of Columbus, Ohio since 1982. He is a graduate of Brown University and the Cantors Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary. A baritone, he is an accomplished song interpreter. He has been involved in every facet of Jewish music-making throughout the Columbus Jewish community and has helped plan and implement many community musical and cultural events. He is co-founder and co-director of KOLEINU, the Jewish Community Chorus of Columbus, and Director of HaZamir Columbus, a local chapter of the International Jewish High School Choir, preparing Columbus participants and joining with 400+ singers from all over the U.S. and Israel in annual concerts including Carnegie Hall (where he conducted), the Metropolitan Opera and other major theaters. Jack has been a leading activist in social justice and interfaith programs in central Ohio. He was a founder of We Believe Ohio, along with Rev. Tim Ahrens and others – an organization safeguarding liberal values in the religious community – whose work has been expanded in later years through Faith in Public Life.
Cantor Chomsky will retire in October 2020 and become Cantor Emeritus of Tifereth Israel. Shortly after, he and his wife plan to move to Tel Aviv, Israel.
Cantor Chomsky twice served as Co-President of B.R.E.A.D. (Building Responsibility, Equality And Dignity), a local congregation-based community action organization. For many years, he has coordinated the social action programming of Tifereth Israel. He has been deeply involved in relations between the Jewish and Muslim communities in Columbus, and countless interfaith and justice initiatives.
He served on the steering committee of the Columbus Jewish Federation’s Partnership 2000 project with Kfar Saba, Israel, and led KOLEINU on a 2005 tour to Kfar Saba and Israel. He has led members of his congregation and cantors from across the country on trips to Israel, and led a tour to Jewish sites in Eastern Europe in 2005 (along with Rabbi Michael Ungar). He visited Cuba in February 2008 on a special mission to the Cuban Jewish Community. He served as a member of the Board of Trustees of Jewish Family Services in Columbus,and as a Board Member and Vice President of the Columbus Jewish Historical Society.
Cantor Chomsky is a Past President of the Cantors Assembly (www.cantors.org), the world’s largest association of professional hazzanim, having been a leader and officer for 20 years. He served as Editor of the Journal of Synagogue Music, the semi‑annual national publication of the Cantors Assembly, from 1988 until 1994. He also edited a 450-page Jubilee Journal celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Assembly, and is co-editor/co-chair of a 75th Anniversary Journal now to be published in 2023. He was an early and active proponent of accepting women into the Cantors Assembly. Women were accepted in the Cantors Assembly for the first time in 1990, and have now held every leadership position in the Assembly. He was also an organizing force in creating a Cantor-in-Residence Program at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin and other Ramah camps across the country.
Cantor Chomsky has been deeply involved in the Jewish spirituality movement. He was a participant in the first cohort of Cantors in the program of the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, in Columbus he developed Service of the Spirit, and now Shabbat Neshamah, a monthly service with instruments performed along with his rabbis. Cantor Chomsky is author of “Pray and Mean It,” a popular series of essays on daily prayer.
Cantor Chomsky served on the Music Advisory Panel of the Ohio Arts Council, including as Chair, and has been active in the commissioning and premiering of several musical works, and has presented many concerts of Jewish music in Columbus, both as performer and producer. He has chaired community‑wide concerts featuring the music of many religious traditions, including Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Baha’i, and Muslim. The concerts featured choirs of over 150 singers. He has also appeared often on the subject of Jewish music, Jewish religion, and Israel on local radio and television, and has been featured numerous times as a columnist in the Columbus Dispatch.
Cantor Chomsky starred as Tevye in a sold-out run of Gallery Players’ Production of Fiddler on the Roof at the Columbus JCC in the spring of 2006 and reprised the role alongside his wife, Susan Gellman as Golde, in 2013. He served as soloist with the Greater Columbus Community Orchestra in the premiere of “Pirkei Avot” by Mark Kross. Among other works he premiered – in Ohio – are The American Selichot Service by Gary William Friedman, Psalm 30 by Daniel Asia, and I Never Saw Another Butterfly by Gary William Friedman.
He has traveled the world with the Cantors Assembly on Missions to Poland, Israel, Germany, and Spain – with Italy scheduled for 2020. He was also a participant in a concert tour of the Bloch Sacred Service to Bulgaria and Israel in November 2008 in commemoration of the saving of Bulgaria’s Jewish community during the Holocaust. Cantor Chomsky co-chaired a Cantors Assembly mission to Uganda in 2019 – leading a dozen cantors in support of that country’s unique Jewish community. He has written dozens of melodies for synagogue, some of which have been published in Zamru Lo – melodic collections of the Cantors Assembly.
Cantor Chomsky has been involved in working for the establishment of two states – especially in his work as a national leader among clergy for J Street. He attended 2 World Zionist Congresses on behalf of the Masorti Movement (the international version of the Conservative movement in the U.S.) and has made many trips to Israel.
He is married to Susan Gellman, an attorney and actress and is the father of Ben Gellman-Chomsky of San Diego and Audrey Zada of Tel Aviv.
