VIGODA, SAMUEL

VIGODA, SAMUEL (1895–1990), ḥazzan. Vigoda, one of the star ḥazzanim of the Golden Age, was born in Dubrozin, Poland, but the family moved to Hungary, where his father was ḥazzan. He studied at the yeshivot of Galante and Pressburg and as a child lived for two and a half years with the famous   ḥazzan, Yossele rosenblatt ; later he also learned music at the conservatories of Klausenberg and Budapest as well as medicine at the university there. After serving as ḥazzan to the Arena Temple in Budapest, he immigrated to the United States in 1933, where he served as ḥazzan to important congregations in New York and Washington, including Rosenblatt's Oheb Zedek, the position that was given to him following Rosenblatt's untimely death. He published many articles on the history of ḥazzanut in Europe and the United States and produced many records. In 1980 he was given an award by the Ḥazzanim Farband of America and Canada. In 1981, Vigoda published Legendary Voices in English, which contains material concerning Ashkenazi ḥazzanim. (Akiva Zimmerman / Raymond Goldstein (2nd ed.)