Singer

NJ has been singing all his life: at the piano in a Catskill Mt. lounge; onstage for recitals of German, Italian, & Yiddish art-songs; from a pulpit as High Holiday cantor for Harvard’s Jewish community; etc.  In 1991, he founded Jubal’s Lyre to present concerts of diverse music inspired by the Hebrew Bible: “musical midrash.”  More ›

Scholar

NJ's scholarly writings have mostly been about sound and meaning: a senior thesis (1962) on the relationship between meter and meaning in Pindar’s odes; a doctoral dissertation (1987) on the relationship between intonation contours and syntactical meaning in traditional chanting of the Hebrew Bible; etc. More ›

Rabbi

In his early 30s, NJ embarked on study of Jewish texts, liturgy and observance; became deeply involved in a couple of  Jewish communities; served as cantor & educator at a synagogue; and tutored bar/bat-mitzvah students. Ordained at age 58 by a transdenominational rabbinical court, he was a Harvard chaplain until retirement at 70. More ›

Man of many parts

College Classics led NJ into Naxian and Salentine adventures.  In his 20s, Callas recordings inspired him to write about Italian opera.  At 26, he plunged from grad school into 8 years of importing diamonds. At 30, he co-founded Ashmont Hill Association, organizing house tours awarded by the Boston Society of Architects.  More ›