June 20 • 2019 43
jn

soul

of blessed memory

Corrections
The notice for Beverly Keller (June 
6) should have indicated that she is 
survived by daughter and son-in-
law, Gayle (Josh Jackson) Keller of 
Jacksonville, Ore. Also, she was the 
loving daughter of the late Sophie 
and the late Al Moore.

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as 30 words. There is no charge for a 
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considerations. For information, have 
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OF CARING AND RESPECTFUL SERVICE

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Champion of Traditional Jewish Music Dies

(JTA) — Musicologist and publisher 
Velvel Pasternak, who published more 
than 150 volumes of Jewish music, 
has died.
Pasternak, who also conducted and 
arranged music, died June 11, 2019, in 
New York City. He was 86.
He founded Tara Publications in 
1971. The goal of the company was 
the publication, preservation and dis-
semination of the heritage of Jewish 
music, its website says.
The earliest publications were col-
lections of Chasidic songs based on 
recordings arranged and conducted 
by Pasternak. These were followed 
by Israeli, Yiddish, klezmer, choral, 
cantorial and instrumental music 
collections. He published anthologies 
of Sephardic music, including Ladino, 
Spanish-Portuguese, and from Bosnia, 
Sarajevo and Calcutta. He also pub-
lished a volume of Holocaust music.
Pasternak, a Toronto native, was 
the son of Polish immigrant parents. 
He received a bachelor’
s degree from 

Yeshiva University and studied at 
the Juilliard School, and received a 
master’
s in music education from 
Columbia.
He realized in the late 1960s 
that there was a need for books of 
Chasidic music with melody lines and 
chords after being contacted by the 
families of Orthodox Jewish brides-

to-be who found that the bands they 
wanted to hire to play at their wed-
dings only knew one or two Jewish 
songs.
Over the years, he moved from 
printed books to e-books, and from 
cassettes and CDs to MP3s. He later 
added downloadable sheet music.
Last year, to mark 50 years since 
the publication of his first Jewish 
music book, he published The Jubilee 
Songbook, including 240 selections 
from his previously published music 
books, providing an overview of pop-
ular Jewish music of the 20th and 21st 
centuries.
In a blogpost to mark his 50 years 
in Jewish music publishing, his 
daughter Shira Pasternak Be’
eri noted 
that his work was significant in “pre-
serving an entire heritage that had 
never been documented by anyone 
else.
”
He is survived by his wife, Goldie; 
five children and grandchildren. 
Pasternak was buried in Israel. ■

VELVEL PASTERNAK MEMORIAL PAGE/FACEBOOK

Velvel Pasternak in the offices of his company 

Tara Publications, located in the basement of his 

Long Island, N.Y., home.

