For Kol HaLev cantorial soloist Mara Yaffee, working at a synagogue wasn’t exactly the plan.

Yaffee wanted a career in music and is a practicing Jew, but when she was applying to jobs in 2024, she wasn’t specifically looking for a role at a shul.

“I hadn’t really worked in a synagogue as a leader at that point, but I loved going to synagogue growing up, and so I reached out and it just ended up being bashert,” she said.

What Yaffee, a Baltimore resident, has found is that Kol HaLev and the job of cantorial soloist is one that she not only enjoys, but is a natural fit for.

The synagogue’s Rabbi Emily Stern, herself a musician, said Yaffee has “the most amazing voice [I’ve] ever heard.”

And at Kol HaLev, the work environment is a special one in which everyone contributes toward a greater good.

“I collaborate with musicians in all aspects of my life, but doing it in a synagogue setting … we’re on a mission. It’s really about serving the community, and that comes through in the collaborative process with the other community members and clergy,” Yaffee said.

Yaffee said that often means arranging, with music being pulled from all sorts of places. Sometimes, the team is arranging classics and sometimes it’s working with more contemporary Jewish folk tunes. Yaffee also writes her own songs, but she hasn’t done that for Kol HaLev yet.

But it’s not just singing at services. Yaffee founded a choir for community members, which has sung at larger events like High Holiday services.

“Everyone there is very, very happy to be there and grateful for that opportunity being created, and it’s been really nice for many reasons. They’re all lovely people, and they have a lot more wisdom in all aspects of life than I do. So being around them is really nice, [as is] knowing that … we’re kind of creating community together. It’s a place where they can strengthen the community bonds that they already have in a new space,” Yaffee said.

In addition to practicing music in her own time and working at Kol HaLev, Yaffee recently started a new role as a music teacher with Baltimore City Public Schools.

“Many of the choir members and other members of the synagogue work in education or have long careers in education, so they’ve been very supportive — not just in my work, but in all aspects of my life,” Yaffee said.

Yaffee has a varied background in education, having taught private voice lessons, small-group lessons and working with the Baltimore Symphony’s OrchKids outreach organization. With the school system, she is excited to reach more children and influence their musical journeys.

Yaffee she said when she started the job, she felt a heightened sense of responsibility. Despite the fact she hadn’t been formally trained to be a cantor and only knew basic Hebrew, she learned quickly, thanks in part to help from the Kol HaLev clergy.

She added Judaism is an essential part of her life and has laid the groundwork for much of who she is.

“It’s definitely my cultural identity, and it’s the moral framework of my life,” Yaffee said.

Yaffee also sings in a choral group in Baltimore called Dualis. She is an inaugural member of the group, which is entering its third year.

Yaffee keeps busy with music, and that’s the way she likes it. And at Kol HaLev, she has found a caring community that has helped her ease into a new type of musical career.

“It definitely felt like a lot of learning in the beginning, but everyone was so supportive,” she said.

aguckes@midatlanticmedia.com