Cantor Shayna De Lowe
Cantor Shayna De Lowe (she/her) has dedicated her career to Congregation Rodeph Sholom, beginning her role in our community directly after being ordained from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s School of Sacred Music in 2007. Growing up in a very small, tight-knit Jewish community in the Midwest, Shayna was immediately drawn in by the warmth and connection she found at CRS. The feeling of connection was so impactful in Shayna’s life that she has focused on helping others find connection and fulfillment, always looking for more ways to deepen spirituality in both herself and others.
She is a graduate of the Clergy Leadership Program through the Institute for Jewish Spirituality, which trains clergy in the study of Hasidic text, chant, meditation, silence, and yoga. This program fueled Shayna’s search for different avenues of spiritual connection at CRS and she dives into this work in various ways. Shayna helped develop a special needs B’nai Mitzvah program which opens Jewish tradition to families with all kinds of needs. She created an American Sign Language choir, combining ASL and singing to offer prayer in a medium accessible to those in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community. In 2016, she and Rabbi Spratt created Minyan, a small-group initiative focused on making deep connections between members of the CRS community. This is the first initiative of its kind at Rodeph Sholom.
Shayna has also made social action and social justice a focus of her work here. As the clergy liaison to the Social Action committee, she partners with congregants as well as outside organizations to maintain CRS’s commitment to bettering the world. Actions include becoming a sponsor through the HIAS domestic refugee resettlement that resulted in CRS resettling five refugees to America, supporting and expanding the Backpack Buddies weekend food program, supporting the work of Days for Girls and West Side Campaign Against Hunger, and helping to run the Homeless Shelter that is at the heart of our synagogue. Shayna sees it as the job of each person to continue the work of making the world better and she strives to instill that value throughout the CRS community.
Called to the cantorate by the desire to use music to guide people as they navigate their own spiritual path, Cantor De Lowe’s soulful voice resonates with all who hear it, the sound of her chanting remaining with us long after the service ends.
