Cantor Michael Rumack adds the personal touch to life cycle events.

Michael Rumack has done it all. He has been a photographer, a puppeteer, a public speaker, always some kind of performer. He loves performing Israeli and Yemenite music for people of all ages. Somewhere along the line, after taking private lessons with a cantor, all of the experiences came together.

Today, he serves as cantor and religious school director of Congregation Etz Hadar, a Conservative synagogue in Redlands, and he leads Jewish services of all kinds throughout Southern California. The personalized yet traditional egalitarian services for all life cycle events can take place in the home, a hotel, a lakeside retreat, or anywhere else.

Rumack, a Toronto native who moved to Southern California two years ago, says he “helps you design an inclusive service that will touch the hearts of your family and guests – a service that respects our tradition while incorporating elements of ancient and modern ritual, allowing people at all levels of observance to feel welcome and comfortable. It can be formal or informal but with warmth.”

Cantor Rumack wants to “make the whole thing very personal and intimate and make people feel part of it.” He likes to include the whole congregation in his services and explain the traditions to everyone. He tries to understand what’s important to the family and often forms long-term relationships with the people he serves, moving through various life cycles with them.

When he was 8, Rumack got a vinyl recording of Israeli music. His father, he says, practically went into a trance when he heard the Yemenite selections on the record. Rumack himself gravitated to this music, learning how to accompany himself on a Middle Eastern drum called a darbouke.

“I went to Israel for Passover one year,” he adds. “My brother-in-law is Moroccan, and his sister’s husband is Yemenite. I met a hazzan named Yosef from Yemen and performed a song for him. We went on singing together for 2.5 hours and became instant friends.”

Yosef recorded how Yemenites did the Torah service on a cassette and hand wrote 30 different pieces for Michael. “I felt my father’s presence and absorbed the music as my father had. Now I try to introduce Yemenite music to North Americans,” he says.

Rumack’s musical repertoire can take the form of singing songs from Song of Songs accompanied by the darbouke, singing different songs for everybody coming down the aisle at a wedding before going under the chuppah, or presenting a geographic tour of Israel for an occasion. He will even do Bar and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies in Israel and go along on tours with his brother-in-law as the tour guide.

“In every case the ceremony makes people more conscious of their Judaism,” Rumack concludes.

Contact Cantor Michael Rumack at (909) 689-9894 or cantor@etzhadar.org.