2013: Cantor Ellen Dreskin
Cantor Ellen Dreskin is an innovative leader in today’s reform movement. Her expertise extends from music to synagogue transformation, from experiential education to enlivened liturgy and mysticism. She has worked with Jews of all denominations from Houston to Chicago and Los Angeles to Boston, both as a scholar-in-residence and in her capacity as past Director of Programs for Synagogue 2000, a national not-for-profit institute dedicated to revitalizing and re-energizing synagogue life in North America.
Ellen has served as cantor and educator for congregations in Cleveland and New York, and has taught for many years on the faculty of URJ Summer Kallot, Hava Nashira, and the URJ Kutz Camp Leadership Academy.
Ellen is a native Texan, a 1986 graduate of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) School of Sacred Music, has a Master’s Degree in Jewish Communal Service from Brandeis University, and is proud to have recently received her honorary Doctorate of Music from HUC-JIR. She has recently been appointed the Coordinator of the new Cantorial Certification Program at the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music at HUC-JIR in New York.
She is married to Rabbi Billy Dreskin, and is extremely proud of their joint projects: Katie, Jonah (z”l), and Aiden.
