About Us - Clergy
Our Cantor

Cantor Joshua Konigsberg studied music and musicology at the Manhattan School of Music and the University of Minnesota, and voice and chazzanut with his father, Cantor Jacob Konigsberg.  As conductor, pianist, organist and vocalist, he has served in synagogues, concertized in Jewish and secular music, performed in opera and musical theatre and in recordings.

Before coming to B’nai Jacob, he served congregations in New York, New Jersey, Minnesota and Greenwich, CT.  Since coming to B’nai Jacob in 1980, Cantor Konigsberg has commissioned and composed numerous works for the synagogue.  He soloed with the New Haven Symphony in his own arrangement of Bruch’s Kol Nidre and in the title role in Handel’s Judas Maccabeus.  He has also been active in B'nai Jacob's unique regional theatre group, The B'nai Jacob Players, since its re-inception in 1991 at which time he played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof.

In recent years he has composed numerous works for chorus on Jewish themes, receiving successive commissions for Chanukah and Passover cantatas from the ACES/Educational Center for the Arts.  He has also written several song cycles on Jewish themes, including A Walk in Taormina on poetry of Dr. Barry Zaret for B'nai Jacob's 120th anniversary and Songs of Jacob for his own 25th anniversary at the synagogue in 2006.

“How Can I Repay God?” from Cantor Konigsberg's complete choral setting of the Hallel was premiered by the New Haven Chorale in 2007.

Cantor Konigsberg resides in New Haven with his wife Lenore.  They have three children.