by Lori Silberman Brauner
NJJN Staff Writer

August 27, 2009

It’s been a long journey for Cantor Vadim Yucht, who was born and grew up in Ukraine, studied in Moscow, and lived in Israel before coming to the United States over a decade ago.

This summer, he became cantor at Morristown Jewish Center Beit Yisrael.

“This is a new stage in life,” said the cantor, who spent the last 11 years at the Orangetown Jewish Center in Orangeburg, NY, and became a U.S. citizen last year. With his two children, ages 22 and 19, both out of the house, he said, “it was time to make a change.”

Yucht replaces Cantor Maimon Attias, who spent the last 30 years at the Conservative Morristown synagogue before retiring this year.

Yucht, who was born in the town of Nikolayev, near Odessa, was told since his childhood that he had “a beautiful singing voice.” Was his family religious? “Not at all,” he said. “They tried to keep tradition the way they could,” he said. They would eat matza and gefilte fish, and his grandparents spoke Yiddish.

With his musical talent, at age eight he was sent to a government-sponsored boys’ choir school in Moscow that drew in youngsters from all over the former Soviet Union. His classmates were aware of his heritage. “I experienced from a very young age a lot of anti-Semitism,” he said.

By age 17 Yucht had received the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in his musical studies, and continued his education at the Moscow University of Music and Culture, receiving a master’s degree in choral conducting. He then met and married his wife, Dina.

He said she woke up the “Jewish roots in me. She was already a very strong Zionist at that time.”

Called up to serve in the Soviet Union’s Red Army in the late 1970s, Yucht was accepted to its prestigious chorus, later serving as conductor and musical arranger.

Life in the Soviet Union was always difficult, so when former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev ushered in a new era of perestroika, the Yuchts seized the opportunity to make aliya in 1991. They lived in Israel for the next seven years.

“It was difficult to find a job,” said Yucht, noting the many musicians from the former Soviet Union who had moved to Israel. When he first arrived there, he did not even know what a hazan was — despite the fact that his mother’s family name is Hazanovich. His first job was as a singer in the choir at Jerusalem’s Great Synagogue.

“It touched the very bottom of my soul,” he said. “This is what I wanted to be.”

‘Preserving Judaism’

Yucht was then accepted to the Tel Aviv Cantorial Institute and also found a job with the Opera Chorus in Tel Aviv. From 1997 to 1998 he served as cantor of Congregation Emet VeAnva in Ramat Gan, a Tel Aviv suburb.

In 1998, Yucht was invited to perform in the United States as part of an “Israel at 50” tour. Once here, he was snapped up by the Orangetown Jewish Center, and the rest is history.

And while he first picked up the cantorial bug at an Orthodox synagogue in Jerusalem, his experience with liberal congregations in the Tel Aviv area made him realize that he is more at home with the Conservative movement, one that “preserves Judaism” with “very meaningful changes and slow changes.”

“That’s the future for American Jewry,” he said.

In coming to the Morristown synagogue, Yucht was also impressed that the cantors there have had such long tenures — he is only the third cantor in 60 years. And after spending a weekend in Morristown, where the sanctuary was packed for a Friday night service, “we just fell in love,” he said.

And the feeling appears to be mutual.

“It was definitely the whole package that he brings” — both his voice and personality, said congregation copresident Rita Gotfried of Randolph. “He’s a lovely man, and his wife is just as lovely.”

Synagogue leaders were impressed that when Yucht first auditioned this year, he came to MJC’s religious school and “adjusted what he was doing based on the age group he was working with,” Gotfried said. “He clearly is someone who loves the kids and wants to work with them.”

Referring to his gifts that come “from shamayim,” the heavens, he said, “I want to bring all my talents to enrich my community with music,” including starting a children’s choir and working with the Minyonaires, MJC’s teen group, and members of “all ages and all stages.” Yucht, who plays guitar, piano, and accordion, was selected by United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and its Cantors Assembly to perform on its Spirit of Israel CD in honor of Israel’s 60th anniversary last year.

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