Shlomo Carlebach

After his appearance at the Berkeley Folk Festival he decided to remain in the San Francisco Bay Area to reach out to what he called "lost Jewish souls"—runaways and drug-addicted youth. His local followers opened a center called the House of Love and Prayer in the Inner Richmond district of San Francisco, to reach out to disaffected youth with song and dance and communal gatherings. He became known as "The Singing Rabbi". Through his infectious music and his innate caring many Jews feel that he inspired and reconnected thousands of Jewish youngsters and adults, otherwise lost to Judaism.

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 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 claim 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.

The New York Times reported in its obituary of Carlebach that his singing career began in Greenwich Village, where he met Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and other folk singers who encouraged his career, and helped him get a spot at the Berkeley Folk Festival in 1966. But Carlebach was actually recording well before this and was invited to the festival by one of its organizers after she heard a recording of Carlebach.

In 1951, Carlebach began learning English in a special program at Columbia University, having previously conversed mainly in 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.

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

Carlebach emigrated to Lithuania in 1938 where he studied at a yeshiva. In 1938 his father became the rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jacob, a small synagogue on West 79th Street in New York City's Upper West Side. Carlebach came to New York in 1939 via Great Britain. He and his twin brother Rabbi Eli Chaim Carlebach took over the rabbinate of the synagogue after their father's death in 1967.

Shlomo Carlebach was born on January 14, 1925 in Berlin, Germany.