Who We Are
Our name, translated from Hebrew, signifies a beautiful and noteworthy sentiment:
Our synagogue is a gathering place open to all Jewish people.
Cnesses is, first and foremost, a second home for our community. Some of our congregants have attended services at CCI for their entire lives; others perhaps only for a few years. All are welcome at CCI, and regardless of race, sex, gender, or level of religious education. All who enter our synagogue are family.
People of all faiths and traditions are welcome here. Whether you are a Jew, are a member of a Jewish family or Jewish partnership, care about the Jewish community, or are interested in learning more about Jewish faith and practice, we invite you to visit. CCI is not a place exclusively for Jews, but rather one where all can come together to experience Jewish life and culture.
Here at CCI, we learn together. We celebrate Shabbat and holidays. Our community hosts community dinners, classes, picnics, book groups, sing-alongs, movie screenings, and more!
Indeed, a synagogue is not solely a house of prayer, but a gathering for all that life has to offer!
So please, feel free to come and join us anytime. We look forward to welcoming you and your family.
Our Spiritual Leader
Cantor Kate Judd
Cantor Kate Judd has been interested in professional singing and in religion since early childhood. She has a graduate degree in classical voice from the Longy School of Music, where she studied with Sanford Sylvan, z”l. She has performed classical music and cantorial repertoire throughout the New England area. Highlights include the premiere of Lynn Torgove’s “Frauenstimmen: Women’s Voices at Ravensbruck”, and a concert of art songs by Lazar Weiner at YIVO in New York.
Cantor Kate received a Masters of Jewish Education in 2015 and her
Ordination as a Cantor from Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts in 2016. There she studied with Cantor Charles Osborne, Cantor Louise Treitman, Cantor Doctor Brian Mayer, Cantor Lynn Torgove, Cantor Jeff Klepper, and Professor Joshua Jacobson, among many other wonderful teachers. Cantor Kate also studied Talmud and Torah at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, Israel for a year.
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In addition to being a Cantor-Educator, Cantor Kate has taught voice and the Alexander Technique (a method of mind-body re-education) for more than three decades. She is a past Chair of the American Society for the Alexander Technique (AmSAT).
Cantor Kate also was trained as a bereavement counselor and loss group facilitator with her local Hospice, and volunteered there for several years.
Prior to her appointment at CCI, she was privileged to serve several Jewish communities in the New England area.
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Click here to read The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle article welcoming Cantor Kate to Green Bay!
History
By the turn of the 20th century, Green Bay’s Orthodox Jewish community was in need of somewhere to worship. Early congregants, who first had met together at the home of a local cantor, began formally to organize our shul as early as 1899. Five years later (and within just half a century of Green Bay’s own incorporation as a city), Congregation Anshe Keneseth Israel opened its doors. The original building, at the corner of Pine and North Jackson Streets, was later outgrown, and a new location established in 1951. With this transition came also a new alignment to Conservative Judaism, as well as the adoption of our current name, Congregation Cnesses Israel.
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Today, however, Cnesses is an unaffiliated synagogue. We welcome with open arms any and all congregants, be they Conservative, Orthodox, or Reform!