Minkovsky, Phinehas

Russian cantor; born at Byelaya Tzerkov April, 1859. His father, Mordecai, a descendant of Yom-Ṭob Lipmann Heller, was cantor in the great synagogue of Byelaya Tzerkov, and he himself was a singer in his father's choir. After having studied the Bible and Talmud under different teachers, Minkovsky continued his Talmudical studies alone in the bet hamidrash of his native town. At the age of eighteen he began to study Russian and German, and he mastered these two languages. His first teacher in vocal music was his father; later he studied it under Nisan Spivak (Nisan Belzer or Nisan Berdychever), and finally he went to Vienna, where he continued under Robert Fuchs, now (1904) director of the Conservatorium of Vienna, from whom he obtained a diploma as singer. From 1888 Minkovsky was successively cantor at Kishinef, Kherson, Lemberg, Odessa (in the great synagogue), New York (in the synagogue Ḳehal 'Adat Yeshurun), and in 1892 he was called back to Odessa, where he is now cantor in the Broder Synagogue. He has written "Die Entwicklung der Synagogalen Liturgie bis nach der Reformation des 19jahrhunderts" (Odessa, 1902). Minkovsky has contributed to many Hebrew periodicals and to "Die Wahrheit."

H. R. B. Ei.