Traditionally, Jewish law

Halakha

Halakha — also transliterated Halocho , or Halacha — is the collective body of Jewish law, including biblical law and later talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions.Judaism classically draws no distinction in its laws between religious and ostensibly non-religious life; Jewish...

 has not allowed women to lead the prayer service in the synagogue. Even the Reform

Reform

Reform means to put or change into an improved form or condition; to amend or improve by change of color or removal of faults or abuses, beneficial change, more specifically, reversion to a pure original state, to repair, restore or to correct....

 movement did not train female cantors

Hazzan

A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...

 until the early 1970s. Two forms of female cantors have developed:

1. A chazante is a woman performing cantoral music outside the synagogue. The word is a Yiddish declension
   Declension
   In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...
   
    of chazan (Hebrew and Yiddish for cantor), to the feminine.
2. A chazaneet is a woman leading Jewish prayer services
   Jewish services
   Jewish prayer are the prayer recitations that form part of the observance of Judaism. These prayers, often with instructions and commentary, are found in the siddur, the traditional Jewish prayer book....
   
   . The word is the feminine, Hebrew declension of the word chazan.

Chazantes generally performed cantorial music outside the synagogue. Famous chazantes in the mid 20th century include: Betty Simonoff, Liviya Taychil, Sabina Kurtzweil, Sophie Kurtzer, Perele Feyg, Jean Gornish

Jean Gornish

Jean Gornish , known as “Sheindele di Chazante", was a chazante, a female performer of Jewish cantorial and liturgical music. She is often called the first woman chazan, although she never served in that capacity in a permanent position in a synagogue.Jean Gornish was born in 1916...

 and Freydele Oysher. Most of the chazantes followed the tradition of their male counterparts and played up their European pedigrees by adopting nicknames like "Di Odesser chazante" (The Odessa chazante) or "Di Ungarishe chazante" (The Hungarian chazante).

The term chazaneet is a more recent one referring to a woman leading the prayer services. In recent decades, both the reform and conservative communities have allowed women to lead services. Betty Robbins was possibly the first female cantor in 1955 though Barbara Ostfeld is usually given that distinction since her investiture at the Hebrew Union College

Hebrew Union College

The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism.HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem.The Jerusalem...

 in 1975. With the creation of Orthodox

Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...

 Partnership minyan

Partnership minyan

Partnership minyan is a term used by the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance to describe a prayer group that, according to its adherents, conforms to the strictures of Orthodox Judaism while still allowing for parts of the services to be led by both men and women...

im, orthodox women are allowed to lead parts of the prayer services.

External links

• Article on Sophie Kurtzer, known as "Sheindele di Chazante"
• Contributions of Jewish Women to Music and Women to Jewish Music