Of Goffin And Carlebach

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The Jewish Week’s editorial and Steve Lipman’s article on the passing of Cantor Sherwood Goffin (April 12 issue) are a welcome, fitting tribute to a truly significant exponent of Jewish music and chazzanut.

One clarification, though. I’m quoted as stating that Cantor Goffin, whom I knew and admired for 58 years, was the musical voice of the Soviet Jewry movement. Indeed he was — but together with his friend and colleague Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, whose “Am Yisrael Chai,” penned as a marching song for the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, has grown into a second Jewish national anthem.

Manhattan

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