It was chassidic music expert Yossi Gil who had the vision to see what no one else could
Years later, that incident still haunts him. It would take years before he’d bring his captivating, heartwarming voice back to center stage.
“After that mortifying incident in front of the Rebbe and the entire chassidus, it was clear to me that I would never sing again,” Zanvil reveals. “I was traumatized. I couldn’t even look at a microphone.”
That should have spelled the end of a budding music career for the chassidishe bochur with the golden voice. Indeed, for years his talent languished. How, then, did it happen that today, Zanvil Weinberger’s reputation precedes him as a highly-talented and sought-after authentic chassidic vocalist? It literally happened against his will, thanks to well-known chassidic music personality Yossi Gil, whose instincts are always on target.
“It was at a bar mitzvah for Yossi’s nephew at the Beis Yisrael hall in Jerusalem,” Zanvil recalls as we sit together in a joint conversation together with Yossi Gil, an expert on the music of the chassidic courts and considered one of the original conservators of chassidic music, his achievements all the more remarkable because he’s vision-impaired.
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