Pinhas Jassinowsky was born in Romanovka, a small town outside of Kiev, Ukraine. Jassinowsky’s first exposure to Jewish liturgical music was as a choirboy under director Pinhas Minkowski in Kherson. He went on to study music in St. Petersburg where he worked as an assistant choirmaster at a local Synagogue. He immigrated to the United States in 1917, and began touring extensively, performing in Synagogues and giving public concerts. Jassinowsky was also a prolific composer of liturgical and Yiddish folk music. His most well known liturgical arrangements include, Ve hayah be-Aharit ha-Yamim (1926), Aseret ha-Dibberot, Shirat ha-Be’er and Ba-Yom ha-Hu.
