Hammerman's Life At Beth El Is The Life Of Its Congregation

Cantor: He Retires In June After Singing For Generations Of Bar Mitzvahs, Weddings And Funerals.

Herb Kasoff pops into the cantor's office bearing wine for Passover and proclaims: "I was his first bar mitzvah!"

Cantor Saul Z. Hammerman doesn't deny it. But he doesn't confirm it either.

"I've been told that by five other people," he says mildly.

But Kasoff persists. "You know how everybody says they were at Ebbets Field the day Jackie Robinson broke in 50 years ago? That's how guys are claiming they were the first bar mitzvah. But I was the first."

Such claims are multiplying at Beth El these days. Cantor Hammerman, the longest serving cantor in Baltimore, retires at the end of June after 45 years at Beth El Synagogue, and the congregation is beginning to wax nostalgic.

"It's a remarkable achievement," says Rabbi Mark G. Loeb, spiritual leader at Beth El. "It's almost unheard of that somebody stays at one place so long and with so much continuing skill and ability.

"Only one or two cantors in the whole country have had that kind of longevity in a single synagogue," the rabbi says. "He has literally affected every generation of this synagogue."

Saul Hammerman arrived at Beth El Synagogue in 1952, just four years after the congregation was founded in Ashburton with the revered Jacob B. Agus as rabbi. The congregation had just 350 families then. Now at 8101 Park Heights Ave., it has 1,700 families and is one of the largest Conservative congregations on the East Coast.

As cantor all those years, Hammerman has become something of a touchstone for the generations. During his tenure, he figures he's done 90 or so bar and bat mitzvahs a year. He'll sing at two this week. But he's noncommittal about whose was first.

And it's not just bar mitzvahs. Grandmothers come forth now and claim they were brides at the first wedding of the thousands he has performed at Beth El.

"I have no idea who was first," the cantor says with delicate tact, before taking a call about his next one.

Kasoff, who's retired from the wine and liquor business his father Max founded, stops in now when he brings his granddaughter to school at Beth El. Cantor Hammerman sang at her naming ceremony. He also chanted at the bar mitzvah of Kasoff's son, and at his father's funeral.

Hammerman has sung at an uncounted number of funerals and the unveiling of tombstones 11 months later. On this day, he joins the services for Max Krieger: "Our oldest member, 93 years old. He was a pharmacist. And he came almost every day to the minyan [the prayer service].