 Changing demographics and new synagogue programs helped the congregation recover from its low point in the 1970s . In 1979 , Raymond Scheindlin , a Ph.D. in Arabic literature from Columbia University , and professor of medieval Hebrew poetry at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America ( JTSA ) , became the part @-@ time rabbi of the congregation , replacing Howard Gorin , who had served since 1976 . Scheindlin had become a member in 1974 , after joining the faculty of the JTSA and moving to Brooklyn Heights , and from that point on read the Torah every week and served as cantor . He also encouraged the re @-@ constitution of a choir , which called itself " the DeRossi Singers " after Salamone DeRossi , the leading Jewish composer of the late Italian Renaissance , whose works the choir sang . 
