The High Holidays always bring in a new slate of people to Baltimore’s Jewish community, and with them comes new clergy. 2023 saw many women rabbis joining local congregations.
In 2024, a new rabbi and a new cantor joined two of Baltimore’s biggest congregations, both bringing their own unique stories and plans for their respective synagogues.
Rabbi Sam Blustin started his position as Chizuk Amuno Congregation’s new associate rabbi and director of tefillah and music fairly recently, but it’s far from his first brush with the historic congregation. He actually worked at Chizuk Amuno eight years ago as a song leader while studying to become a rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
But returning to Chizuk Amuno was always something he was interested in.
“I loved the community, and the seriousness with which people took prayer and learning. There are a lot of families at Chizuk Amuno who really care about the cycle of the week and coming together in a way I think is pretty rare for Jewish communities, especially outside bigger hubs of Jewish life,” Blustin said. “It had always been a dream of mine to return here, and when the opportunity came up earlier this year, I was excited to take it.”
Born and raised in Minneapolis, Mo., Blustin’s family always placed a decent amount of importance on Judaism. He and his relatives on his mother’s side of the family would gather for Shabbat dinner every week. But he credits his love of Judaism largely to his time at Herzl Camp, a Wisconsin-based lay-led conservative summer camp that he attended as a camper for eight years and as a counselor and staff member for another four.
Equally influential was the time he spent studying in Israel at Alexander Muss High School, and later at the Conservative Yeshiva. Blustin originally graduated from the University of Missouri with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, but his year abroad in Israel made him realize that he wanted to study to become a rabbi.
Living and studying in Israel also gave him a different perspective on some of the Jewish rituals and holidays that he had been practicing his whole life.
“Sukkot was never meant to be celebrated in Minneapolis. It’ll be 30 or 40 degrees, and you’ll be sitting inside of a sukkah wearing a coat, hat and mittens,” Blustin quipped. “But it’s beautiful at that time of year in Israel, and there was a real feeling of joy to it there at the end of a long holiday season that I hadn’t gotten to experience before.”
Blustin’s responsibilities are different from previous associate rabbis, as he is not working directly with Chizuk Amuno Congregation’s B’nai Mitzvah program, but instead working to better integrate prayer into the synagogue’s educational offerings. These span from Krieger Schechter Day School to the Glazer High School Program.
He said that he’s excited to be back at Chizuk Amuno, and to see how it’s changed and grown since he was last there.
“It’s great to see how we’ve been creating more and more meaningful spaces to help elevate prayer,” he added. “I also hope to support our lay prayer leaders, to have deep conversations about what it means to pray, to lead prayer for and as a part of a community and the skills to think about to make the experiences as meaningful as it can be for the community.”
The other new arrival to Baltimore’s Jewish community, Hazzan Yoni Rose of Beth Tfiloh Congregation, has worked at the synagogue for nearly a year. But his experience was an unconventional one, as his first official day as cantor was one week before Oct. 7. The tragedy changed his approach to his cantorial responsibilities.
“I found myself dealing musically with things I didn’t think I’d be dealing with,” Rose explained. “I became more conscious about singing more deeply moving and meaningful tunes, rather than singing simply to just inspire happiness.”
A few months into his time as cantor, Rose left Maryland to serve in the reserves of the Israeli Defense Forces. He remained in Israel for three months before returning to Beth Tfiloh.
“That fundamentally changed how I interact with the congregation. After two months on the job, I left for three months, and it created this bond between me and Beth Tfiloh that wouldn’t have happened otherwise,” he said. “It’s an incredible thing to know that you work for an organization that supports the same causes that you do, and is willing to stand behind you when you’re going to do your duty.”
Even before he started as a cantor, Rose had a strong connection with Beth Tfiloh. He attended Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School during high school, and he forged a strong bond with the synagogue’s cantor emeritus, Hazzan Avi Albrecht.
It was this relationship that inspired Rose to become a cantor. Initially, he had been pursuing a career in opera — he even has several performance awards to his name, including from the Metropolitan Opera vocal competition and the Franz Liszt-Garrison Competition.
During his first year as Beth Tfiloh’s cantor, Rose has been focused on building community connections. In addition to conducting youth choirs, he visits congregants in hospitals and performs other lifecycle events.
“What I wanted in a cantorial job was a position where I could really have a wide-reaching effect on the congregation that I was in,” Rose said. “Music is my main job, and everything else is secondary to that, but the opportunity to bring in my own experiences and outlook has been very meaningful.”
