Chaim Adler

Chaim Adler was born in 1939 in Tel Aviv

Chaim Adler was born in 1939 in the Florentin neighborhood of south Tel Aviv. His parents were Leah and Rabbi Zvi Yitzhak Adler, who wrote books on the laws of ritual slaughter. As a child he helped his father lead prayers and sang in the Ger Hasidic choir and in the choir of cantor Shlomo Ravitz.

In 1954 he went to study at the Chafetz Chaim yeshiva in Kfar Saba under Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Steinman. In 1958 he moved to the Hebron yeshiva in Jerusalem. Cantor Leib Glantz later gave him free training at his cantorial school in Tel Aviv.

In 1962 he married Shoshana Halpegot and then served in the IDF Armored Corps. He first worked as cantor at the Ihud Shivat Zion synagogue in Tel Aviv. He then served congregations in Forest Hills, New York, in Finchley, London, and in Englewood, New Jersey.

In the early 2000s he returned to Israel as chief cantor of the Great Synagogue of Tel Aviv. In 2009 he became chief cantor of the Great Synagogue of Jerusalem and left in 2015 when his contract ended. He led memorial prayers at Holocaust sites and in 2005 prayed in Cologne before Pope Benedict.

He had 5 children with his wife Shoshana, and his son Israel Adler is a Hasidic singer. He died in 2026.