Lisa B. Segal

Lisa B. Segal is the cantor of Kolot Chayeinu as well as a longtime member of the congregation. She became an active member of Kolot in its early years and she worked to build Jewish community. Her wedding with longtime member, Arthur Strimling, was the first wedding at Kolot. Although she had previously been closeted about her musical gifts, she sang at her wedding and was pushed to start singing at Kolot as well. Lisa’s journey to becoming a cantor began at Kolot and she was ordained in 2011. Before becoming a full-time cantor, Lisa was an arts manager of non-profit organizations. She is now a senior staff member of Kolot as part of the clergy. Outside of Kolot, Lisa enjoys canoeing, kayaking, gardening, and playing music with others. She has loved being with people over the course of a lifetime at Kolot as people grow up and the community evolves. Lisa feels that at Kolot, she built the community and the community built her. Three words she would use to describe herself are friendly, funny, and spiritual.

In this interview, Cantor Lisa B. Segal shares about the beginning of Kolot, how her role within Kolot has changed, and her journey to becoming Cantor. She talks about her relationship to music, her personal prayer practice, and how her creative approach to ritual informs her pastoral work. She talks about co-creating modern rituals for congregants during meaningful and difficult times of their lives and about showing up for people during the pandemic. She speaks to the transition of rabbis, and her unique dynamics and relationships with Rabbi Ellen Lippmann and Rabbi Miriam Grossman. Towards the end, she reflects on doing this interview on Shabbat and what future listeners might get from the project, sharing her hope that Kolot keeps existing and changing. Quoting Pirkei Avot, she notes that “it is not on us to complete the work, but neither can we desist from it.” She ends the interview by sharing a nigun (wordless melody) that she first heard from Rabbi David Zeller and which she often sings at Kolot.

“You need to be singing at Kolot” Lisa tells the story of serenading her husband Arthur at their wedding, and how Rabbi Lippmann encouraged her to use her musical gifts at Kolot.

“What changed?” A few years after starting to lead music and prayer at High Holidays and Shabbat services, Lisa reflects on what led her to finally really consider becoming a cantor. She talks about how the Kolot community gathered together at the Park Slope Jewish Center on the night of 9/11, and the power of being together in song and prayer.

Lisa talks about what Rabbi Lippmann’s mentorship has meant to her.

Lisa reflects on what it was like to be clergy during the pandemic. She speaks to the challenges of conducting funerals and shivas on Zoom and being there for people when we couldn’t be together in person, as well as the intimacy of people tuning into services from home (reminiscent, in a way, of Kolot’s beginnings) and the vital necessity of meeting people where they are.

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