JASSINOWSKY, PINCHAS

JASSINOWSKY, PINCHAS (1886–1954), ḥazzan and composer. Born at Romanovka, near Kiev, Ukraine, Jassinowsky joined the choir of pinchas minkowski in Kherson, as a boy. While he was studying music in St. Petersburg, he was assistant choirmaster in a synagogue there. In 1917 he emigrated to the United States. He had a smooth and plaintive tenor voice, and his singing in synagogues and at concerts made him a celebrity. He composed a considerable body of music, including Ve-Hayah be-Aḥarit ha-Yamim (Isa. 2:1–4) dedicated to the new Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1926), Aseret ha-Dibberot ("The Ten Commandments"), Shirat ha-Be'er ("The Song of the Well"), Ba-Yom ha-Hu (Isa. 26:1–4), and music for Yiddish poems folk songs, children's songs, and songs of the High Holidays. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sendrey, Music, indexes; Jewish Ministers Cantors' Association of America, Di Geshikhte fun Khazones (1924), 140; idem, Khazones (1937), 227–9 (Yid. and Eng.); N. Stolnitz, Negine in Yidishen Lebn (1957), 125–9. (Joshua Leib Ne'eman)