By COLlive reporter
The high holiday season began very late as shuls created new plans for what davening would look like in a Covid era. Most Chabad House-style congregations are adapting in a myriad of ways including outdoor tents, and offering additional smaller “highlights only” services.
This makes it a great year to throw your hat in and learn how to daven on a smaller scale than a typical year, says Shlomie Rabin, chazzan who founded and runs Jplacing.com, explaining that there is an abundance of available talent this year and also a new opportunity with smaller minyanim needing to be served.
“Chazzanim will surely work harder this year with masks, and musically untreated spaces like tents, but for those that brave the elements to come to Shul we want to give them the best experience possible,” Rabin told COLlive.com.
He curated a Nussach Hatefilla library that has the names you would expect like Eli Lipsker as well as known chazzanim like Benzion Miller.
Jplacing launched a jobs board at https://www.jplacing.com/jobs where people can apply to small and large jobs that work for their location and Shul size.
“With Covid, it meant I’d have to quarantine, and couldn’t make it back to my position in the USA. Jplacing was great because I was able to get a new job in Canada,” says Levi Bisk, a Chazzan that was helped by Jplacing.
There are other resources like the “Davening Itinerary” which is a beautiful breakdown of the Davening that the Rabbi and Chazzan can use to map out the songs that will be used in each section of the Davening.
After a successful Shabbos version, a high holiday one is being made in time for Yom Tov. All of these resources are great for Chabad Houses as well as Anash shuls.
When a chazzan joins they get invited to join the talent portal where they can add media and their experience. Then one of the talent agents sends the Shliach or community leader a link where he can view the candidates and select which one he wants.
“I loved how technology has made this process so much easier with a modern-day audition,” said Rabbi Yitzchok Tiechtel, Director of Chabad of Nashville in Tennessee.
If you need a chazzan or advice on how to proceed with this year’s circumstances, visit jplacing.com
