Deborah Greitzer
November 15, 2019

Growing up in NYC, Deborah Greitzer studied violin with Dorothy DeLay and Oscar Shumsky at the Juilliard School and at Sarah Lawrence College.  She came to Buffalo to join the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, where she has played in the first violin section for over forty years.  She has also performed and taught internationally, notably in Haiti, Thailand, Cuba, Indonesia, and Jordan at Za’atari Refugee Camp on the Syrian border.

Now a member of Congregation Beth Abraham, she grew up, not only with a mother who was both musician and activist, but listening to rabbis Murray Saltzman and Michael Robinson, both of who worked with Martin Luther King in the Civil Rights movement.  In Buffalo, she worked as a lawyer on asylum and VAWA cases.  At Congregation Beth Abraham, she has helped to organize the Multicultural Women’s Group, which includes women organizers of many religions and nationalities.  She has also helped to start Congregation Beth Abraham’s book group, which has been studying the books chosen in 2001 as the 100 greatest Jewish books by the Yiddish Book Center.  She serves as vice president of CBA’s board, participates in the Mussar va’ad that meets there, and is CBA’s representative to JCRC.

Deborah Greitzer will appear on the BPOvations series at libraries in Orchard Park (April 20), Lancaster (April 21), and Amherst (April 27).  In addition to performing, she will discuss the idea that, although music is not always an easily understood language, sharing music and other arts is a way to bridge the divides between cultures.

Married to rowing legend Richard Kendall, Deborah Greitzer is the mother of two daughters, Rebecca Willie, a violinist, music educator, executive director of Music for a Great Space, wife and mother; and Esther Kendall, art historian and runner, currently working for North Face in Denver.

 

 

Deborah Greitzer - Deborah Greitzer