Amanda Kleinman serves as senior cantor of Westchester Reform Temple. Amanda joined WRT as cantorial intern in 2012 and has since served as assistant cantor and then associate cantor. She was named senior cantor in 2019.
Amanda seeks to create new ways for people to connect to Judaism through music and worship. During her time at WRT, she has designed new liturgies for S’lichot and High Holiday community services, re-envisioned how families celebrate Shabbat at WRT through our Connections and Thank Goodness It’s First Friday initiatives, and helped parents and children experience the joy of Jewish music by bringing Music Together Sing Shalom to Westchester. She also serves as clergy liaison to WRT’s Early Childhood Center, Women of Reform Judaism chapter, and Inclusion Task Force.
A native of Dallas, Texas, Amanda grew up participating in all three major Jewish movements. She attended an Orthodox Jewish day school, attended a Conservative congregation with her family, and celebrated Bat Mitzvah at a Reform synagogue. This appreciation for the diversity of Jewish thought and practice informs and shapes her spiritual leadership. She earned a B.A. in history and music from Middlebury College and was ordained a cantor by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. In addition to her love of music, Amanda is passionate about Jewish text and its intersection with Jewish music—she supplemented her cantorial studies with immersive text study at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education.
Amanda remains active in the Reform movement’s organizations, most recently as co-chair of the 2019 American Conference of Cantors-Guild of Temple Musicians Convention and as a contributor to several publications and recording projects. She is also the founding managing editor of the CCAR’s Reform Luach, a dynamic online calendar of Reform Jewish observance.
Amanda makes her home in White Plains with her husband, Cantor Daniel Mendelson, and their one-year-old son, Jed.
To contact Cantor Kleinman, please email Suzanne Saperstein to assist you.