Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Cantors Vie To Create A Military Prayer You Can Hum Along To

A leading group of American cantors is trying to honor American troops in a unique way: challenging its members and other Jewish musicians to come up with the best melody for a prayer for the country’s armed services.

This is an initiative of the JWB Jewish Chaplains Council, the American Jewish War Veterans and the American Conference of Cantors. The groups are sponsoring a contest for a “Song of Service,” based on a prayer for the armed services printed in the JWB’s siddur.

Entries will be screened by a joint group of cantors and chaplains from the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Conservative-affiliated Rabbinical Assembly and the Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America. The winner will see his or her prayer become available in movement synagogues.

For all those aspiring Shlomo Carlebachs and Yossele Rosenblatts, it’s time to get to work.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) or on Twitter, @DanielJsolomon

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.