Modzitz flatbush

Shlomo
Ben Zion Shenker was one of the most gifted and inspired composers of Hassidic niggunim and other related “operas” that became a feature of the Modzitzer.
Ben Zion Shenker was a world-renowned American Hasidic composer and hazzan, associated with the Modzitz hasidic dynasty.

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It is with great sadness that Matzav.com reports the sudden passing this morning of Rabbi Bentzion Shenker z”l. He was 91 years old.

Reb Bentzion was the famed musical secretary of the admorim of Modzitz and a renowned composer, who wrote some of the most well-known niggunim in the frum world, such as Aishes Chayil, Yosis Alayich and Mizmor L’Dovid.

Born in 1925, four years after his parents had immigrated from Poland, Reb Bentzion Shenker’s family first settled on the East Side of Manhattan and moved to Williamsburg. They then resettled in Bedford-Stuyvesant/Crown Heights. After attending public school for first grade, “Bennele,” as he was known, attended Yeshiva Torah Vodaas, then located in Williamsburg, for elementary school, and also for mesivta, until 1947.

At a young age, Bennele was recognized as a precocious boy with a goldene voice. His mother later remarked that her Bennele, at the young age of two or three, never needed any toys to keep himself occupied. Realizing how musically gifted her son was, she simply sat him down at a Victrola. Bennel

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Ben Zion Shenker was one of the most gifted and inspired composers of Hassidic niggunim and other related “operas” that became a feature of the Modzitzer dynasty’s tradition. He credited his mother with transmitting to him a wealth of Hassidic melodies and with inspiring his curiosity and creativity. He became fascinated with traditional hazzanut while still a child—attending synagogue services that featured some of the legendary hazzanim and hearing recordings. When he was twelve years old, he joined a synagogue choir conducted by the esteemed cantor Joshua Samuel Weisser [Pilderwasser], who was a virtual dean of hazzanim in the greater New York area. In 1939 Weisser presented him as a soloist in live radio performances, and shortly afterward he began studying composition and music theory.

In 1940 Shenker had a cathartic and life-changing experience at a service led by Rabbi Saul Taub, the rebbe of the Polish Modzitzer Hassidic dynasty, so named for the town near Lublin from which his forebears and that particular tradition emanated. He and a group of his Hassidim who

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Ben Zion Shenker

American Hasidic composer and hazzan

Ben Zion Shenker בן-ציון בן מרדכי שענקער
Born	(1925-05-12)May 12, 1925 Brooklyn, New York
Died	November 20, 2016(2016-11-20) (aged 91) Brooklyn, New York
Genres	Hasidic music
Occupation(s)	Singer, Composer, Cantor; businessman (non-musical)
Years active	1938-2016

Musical artist

Ben Zion Shenker (1925–2016) was a world-renowned^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] American Hasidic composer and hazzan (cantor), associated with the Modzitz hasidic dynasty. Shenker was born in the heyday of the American hazzan.^[2] He became interested in the art as a child, and was performing on radio by his early teens.^[2] Soon after, he became close to Rabbi Shaul Taub, the Holocaust-surviving Modzitz Grand Rabbi, who was known for his mystical Hasidic compositions.^[2] He dedicated much of his life to recording and publishing the large stock of pre-war Modzitz songs, as well as Taub's post-war work.^[2] Shenker created a music label, Neginah, for the p