Members of Congregation B’nai Israel in Fayetteville were treated to a musical service last month by visiting senior cantor Angela Warnick Buchdahl of Central Synagogue, New York.
Named one of the 50 most influential rabbis in America by Newsweek Magazine, Buchdahl, a graduate of Yale, was invested as a cantor in 1999 and ordained as a rabbi in 2001.
Buchdahl was born to a Korean Buddhist mother and Jewish American father. She is the first Asian-American to be ordained as a rabbi or cantor in North America.
Buchdahl, along with evangelist Rick Warren and Imam Yasir Qadhi, was featured in an episode of Finding Your Roots on PBS. Her voice was also featured in the PBS documentary, “Eighteen Voices Sing Kol Nidrei.”
Buchdahl also spent time with the students of Congregation B’nai Israel’s religious school.
