The chasidic singer and businessman David (Oded Dovid ben Yeshayahu Yechiel Meir), “Dedi” Graucher died on Monday evening, September 11 following a long battle with cancer. He was 62.

The singer was diagnosed with cancer about five years ago and had been hospitalized several times since then. He stopped performing following the diagnosis.

He told a journalist that his music career began in earnest when, as a child, he attended a wedding where the orchestra was led by Mona Rosenblum and the singer was Shmuel Brunner. Watching them perform, he thought that one day that could be him. From that point forward, he began to sing at simchas, including bar mitzvahs and weddings, and joined Yigal Calek’s choir, Yad B’zemer Tzavarim.

He later spent some summers in Camp Agudah, Toronto, where he struck up a working relationship with Suki & Ding, which led him to sing vocals on the song “V’titein” on Mordechai Ben David’s album “V’chol Maaminim.”

Graucher lost his father as a young man and his mother when he was just 16. As a teen, he learned at a yeshiva in Givat Shmuel, where he sang in a choir.

He released his first album shortly before his father died, but found fame when he collaborated with composer Yossi Green on his album “Ratza Hakadosh Baruch Hu.”

Over the years, Graucher collaborated with other prominent Chasidic singers, including Mordechai Ben David, Avraham Fried and Green, with whom he headlined a concert in 1996 in Yarkon Park, considered to be the largest outdoor concert in Israel’s history. The concert was said to have been attended by some 150,000 people.

Graucher’s songs, such as “Chevron” and “Lecho Etain,” are very popular in Israel today.

His son Natan wrote: “Blessed is the True Judge, Oded David ben Tzipora. Father, I will miss you.”

Charedi radio broadcaster Menachem Toker eulogized the legendary singer: “Dedi, my friend, a singer of rare talent, an amazing person, who was always helping everyone, who, even in the most difficult moments had a joke and a smile, the biggest heart I’ve ever seen in my life, I just can’t believe it. Go make the angels happy up there, sing to them from your sacred songs.”