Cantor Sherwood Goffin, acclaimed cantor of the Lincoln Square Synagogue, will be the Scholar in Residence for the 7th Dr. George S. Rotter Memorial Shabbat at Congregation Shaya Ahavat Torah in Parsippany, November 18–19. The Shabbaton will begin on Friday, November 18, with Shabbat services at 4:30, followed by a sumptuous Shabbat dinner at 5:30. Cantor Goffin will give his keynote presentation following dinner, speaking on “Jewish Music Throughout History.”

The Shabbaton continues on Saturday, November 19, with services at 9 a.m. Cantor Goffin will again address the congregation following a deluxe kiddush lunch, speaking of “Personal Reflections Upon 50 years as a Cantor.”

Cantor Sherwood Goffin was cantor of the famed Lincoln Square Synagogue on Manhattan’s West Side since its founding in 1965 until his retirement in 1995. For almost four decades, he was one of America’s first and foremost artists in the world of contemporary Jewish music at concert venues throughout the USA and Canada, producing six successful record albums during that time. He was also the “Voice of Soviet Jewry,” singing rally songs such as “Kachol V’lavan” at every Soviet Jewry rally from 1964 to 1991 before the UN and elsewhere.

In 1995 he voluntarily “retired” from the stage to enter the academic world as Coordinator of Outreach of the Belz School of Jewish Music at Yeshiva University, where he teaches and has taught college-level classes in Jewish Liturgy and Folk Music since 1987. Cantor Goffin is recognized as an expert who has written extensively about the utilization of congregational melodies for prayer, and lectures widely on the subject at venues all over the USA.

Congregation Shaya Ahavat Torah is located at 113 Hawkins Ave. in Parsippany, NJ, and has recently expanded its community eruv to include the nearby Holiday Inn and the Ramada Inn. For more information, contact Naomi Rotter at [email protected] or Rabbi Shalom Lubin at 973-896-6577.