Shlomo Carlebach (musician)

On February 27, 2022, Carlebach was posthumously inducted with the inaugural class of the Jewish Music Hall of Fame.

Although his roots lay in traditional Orthodox yeshivot, he branched out to create his own style combining Hasidic Judaism, warmth and personal interaction, public concerts, and song-filled synagogue services. At various times he lived in Manhattan, San Francisco, Toronto and a Moshav he founded, Mevo Modi'im, Israel. Carlebach is the subject of Soul Doctor, a musical that debuted on Broadway in 2013.

A musical written about his life, Soul Doctor, by Daniel Wise was presented as a limited engagement off-Broadway in 2008 and in New Orleans in 2010, and was received with critical acclaim. The musical had a brief off-Broadway run as a guest attraction at New York Theatre Workshop in the Summer of 2012, and earned Eric Anderson a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical nomination for his portrayal of Shlomo Carlebach. Soul Doctor opened on Broadway August 15, 2013.

A documentary film about Carlebach directed by Boaz Shahak, You Never Know, was released at the Jerusalem Film Festival, also in 2008.

Carlebach became the rabbi of the Carlebach Shul on West 79th Street. He continued to perform regularly at concerts, and to record various albums of his original melodies.

In 1972, he married Elaine Neila Glick, a teacher. They had two daughters, Nedara (Dari) and Neshama. Neshama Carlebach is a songwriter and singer in her own right, basing herself on her father's style and name.

His followers reject these accusations and say that it is unfair to accuse him after his death. However, accusations had already been made as early as the 1970s. Especially in light of the #metoo movement some have begun to question whether Jewish communities should still use his music. In January 2018 his daughter Neshama wrote an open letter to the women who were harmed by Carlebach. She wrote "I accept the fullness of who my father was, flaws and all. I am angry with him. And I refuse to see his faults as the totality of who he was."

Some Carlebach melodies were entered in Israel's annual Hasidic Song Festival. In 1969, his song Ve'haer Eneinu, sung by the Shlosharim won third prize. The Hasidic festivals were a yearly event that helped to popularize his music. He also produced albums with a more liturgical sound. Some of the musicians he worked with during this period added a psychedelic tinge and a wider range of backup instrumentation. Carlebach now spent much of his time in Israel, living in Moshav Me'or Modi'im.

In 1954, the Atlanta Southern Israelite reported that Carlebach was named as the technical advisor for a production of The Dybbuk. Carlebach was to advise on the music used in the theatrical production.

In 1951, Carlebach began learning English in a special program at Columbia University, having previously spoken mainly Yiddish. Becoming fluent in English only at the age of 26, he developed an unusual grammar, mixing Yiddish and English, that became his hallmark, and later influenced the language of his followers, as well as many other members of the neo-hassidic movement.

Carlebach became a disciple of Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, the sixth rebbe of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. From 1951 to 1954, he worked briefly as one of the first emissaries (shluchim) of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Lubavitcher rebbe, who urged him to use his special skills and go to college campuses to reconnect Jews to Judaism, but would later disapprove of the non traditional tactics he used. Carlebach left the movement in 1954.

In 1950 Carlebach set up a small Torah learning group called T.S.G.G. (pronounced TASGIG), an acronym for "Taste And See God Is Good".

Carlebach began writing songs at the end of the 1950s, primarily based on verses from the Tanakh or the Siddur set to his own music. Although he composed thousands of songs, he could not read musical notes. Many of his soulful renderings of Torah verses became standards in the wider Jewish community, including Am Yisrael Chai ("[The] Nation [of] Israel Lives"—composed on behalf of the plight of Soviet Jewry in the mid-1960s), Pitchu Li ("Open [for] Me [the Gates of Righteousness]") and Borchi Nafshi ("[May] My Soul Bless [God]"). Carlebach was recording well before this and was invited to the festival by one of its organizers after she heard a recording of Carlebach.

Shlomo Carlebach (Hebrew: שלמה קרליבך; 14 January 1925 – 20 October 1994), known as Reb Shlomo to his followers, was a rabbi, religious teacher, spiritual leader, composer, and singer dubbed "the singing rabbi" during his lifetime.

Carlebach was descended from old rabbinical dynasties in pre-Holocaust Germany. The Carlebach family is a Jewish family originally from Germany that now lives in several countries. He was born in 1925 in Berlin, where his father, Hartwig Naftali Carlebach (1889–1967), was an Orthodox rabbi. He had a twin brother, Rabbi Eli Chaim Carlebach and a sister, Shulamith Levovitz. His family left Germany in 1931 and lived in Baden bei Wien, Austria and by 1933 in Switzerland.