Cantor and prayer leader Rabbi Berel Zaltzman died overnight in New Jersey at age 92. A longtime Chabad emissary, he was known for his distinctive voice and for using music and prayer to strengthen Jewish life under Soviet rule and later among Russian-speaking communities in North America.
Zaltzman was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in 1934 to Rabbi Avraham Zaltzman, from a family known for its musical and cantorial roots. As a boy, his talent was recognized in a secret synagogue where his family maintained Jewish life under communism. As an adult in the Soviet Union, he became a well-known singer on state radio, but at the same time he was deeply involved in underground Chabad activity, even hosting an unauthorized yeshiva for several years in his home in Samarkand.
For 14 years he served as cantor in hidden synagogues and was eventually appointed chief cantor in one major city synagogue, with an offer to take the top cantorial post in Moscow. He declined that prestigious position because he feared it would block his efforts to leave the Soviet Union. In 1971, after five years of struggle with the authorities, he received exit permission and emigrated to Israel with his wife, Chaya Esther, and their six children.
That same year he visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe for the first time and, on the Rebbe’s instruction, led Musaf on Rosh Hashanah at 770, Chabad World Headquarters. After being offered attractive positions elsewhere, he followed the Rebbe’s guidance and settled in Nachalat Har Chabad in Kiryat Malakhi. In 1980 he moved to the United States to work among former Soviet Jews, first in Los Angeles and later, from 1992, in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, where he and his wife founded the Brith Avraham community for Russian Jews.
He is survived by many descendants, including several children serving as Chabad emissaries in Canada, the United States, and New Jersey. His funeral was scheduled for Tuesday, with a procession at 2:15 p.m. outside 770 before burial at Montefiore Cemetery in Queens.
