For the past 41 years, Cantor Rochelle Helzner has served as the anchor of Tikvat Israel Congregation in Rockville. The community will honor Helzner with a Cantor’s Concert on May 18 ahead of her upcoming retirement.
Helzner’s impact on the Tikvat Israel community has been “almost infinite,” according to Mary Wagner, a former TI member of 30 years and co-chair of the Cantor’s Concert.
The first female cantor of a Conservative Jewish congregation in the Washington, D.C., area, Helzner became ordained as a cantor in the early 1980s, when there were only about a dozen female cantors in the United States, Jeff Smith, the concert chairman, said: “We’re dealing with a revolutionary.”
“Back in 1984, some would consider [TI] took a risk in hiring the first female cantor [in the D.C. area],” Smith said.
That “risk” largely seemed to work out for the community.
“She is so highly skilled at what she does that people have joined the synagogue because of her,” Wagner said.
Wagner added that Helzner helps members with kavanah — a worshiper’s state of mind — ensuring that congregants are in a good headspace for prayer and that everyone participates as much as they feel comfortable.
“For the past 41 years, everyone who attended services at Tikvat Israel has been inspired by Cantor Helzner’s joy, music, ruach and, most especially, her kavanah — the authenticity she brings to her role as a shlichah tzibbur,” Rabbi Marc Israel of TI wrote in a statement emailed to Washington Jewish Week.
Conservative synagogues place much emphasis on music.
“Everything is chanted; almost nothing is spoken,” Wagner said. “Everything is most frequently chanted in Hebrew, and all of that is under the cantor’s purview. So she is in charge of not only leading the prayers, which is [most of] the entire service … but also training people [for] different roles in the service, leading a part of the service or reading from the Torah.
“That’s why she’s so highly respected, because she runs the whole show, but she runs the whole show in a way that includes everyone,” Wagner said.
Helzner brings an international flair to the tunes she sings at services.
“Because she has traveled all over the world, she’s studied with all sorts of different people, so she brings in these niggunim to enhance the service to make it more than just the same thing every week,” Wagner said of Helzner. “There are new tunes coming in every week.”
Not only does she lead weekly Shabbat services, Helzner is responsible for pastoral care, meaning that she visits community members who are sick or bereaved and educates congregants in teaching prayer and religious skills and Hebrew.
“There are hundreds of people — countless members and former members — that have all enhanced their Jewish education because of Rochelle’s encouragement, [her] actual teaching and the training model she put in place,” Smith said.
He said Helzner created an “army of tutors” and an “army of supporters” who provide meals to a family who’s just welcomed a new baby or dealt with the loss of a loved one.
Decades ago, Helzner organized adult bat mitzvah classes for women who grew up in an era when girls weren’t allowed to pursue a Jewish education. She taught them how to pray in Hebrew and the rules of the mitzvot (commandments).
“Since women [born in the 1940s or 1950s] weren’t able to do that, Cantor Helzner filled that role,” Smith said. “In her career, she filled that gap, and I think that’s really notable.”
Wagner added that many of the women who participated in Helzner’s adult bat mitzvah courses went on to participate in services because now they know how: “If they hadn’t gone through that process, they wouldn’t have felt comfortable trying, but they were encouraged and celebrated for it.”
The TI community today has “just as many” female members participating in services, perhaps even more, than men, due to Helzner’s guidance.
“41 years as a communal leader is remarkable — and in Cantor Helzner’s case it is also symbolically significant. In Biblical terms, the number 40 is associated with completeness,” Israel wrote. “But throughout her career, Rochelle never stopped at ‘complete’ — she goes above and beyond the call of duty in everything she does.”
When considering how to honor the longtime cantor who broke the glass ceiling, Wagner and Smith agreed that Helzner wouldn’t want a flashy reception that presented her achievements slide by slide. What she likely preferred was something a little closer to home.
“She wants to celebrate in the way that we all enjoy and that she enjoys, which is celebrating through song,” Wagner said. “And that’s why the concert is an absolutely appropriate way to do this.”
With the help of 55 volunteers, Wagner and Smith coordinated the 2025 Cantor’s Concert, this year in a concert hall to accommodate their more than 530 ticket sales. Multi-instrumental musician and singer Joey Weisenberg and the Rising Song Ensemble will headline the evening’s festivities with religious and spiritual Jewish music.
“Five hundred people will sing together with the band, which will be a very moving experience,” Smith said.
“I want attendees to feel the joy that communal music can bring,” Wagner said.
“Cantor Helzner has been teaching the community these tunes for decades, so this year, everyone is prepared to do their part,” Smith said. “This is a very active participating experience, and that’s the best way to honor Cantor Helzner because participation is really one of the key words that defines her experience with us for 41 years.”
