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By Matis Glenn:

It is with sadness that Belaaz reports the petirah of R’ Ben Tzion Miller z”l, a noted Chazzan who performed in Boro Park’s Bethel shul for decades. He was 77.

Ben Tzion was one of America’s most senior Chazzanim, having been involved in music since the age of 5.

He was born in a Displaced Person’s camp after the Holocaust in the German city of Fernwald. His parents emigrated to New York shortly afterwards. Ben Tzion’s father, Aharoh, was a Chazzan in the Bobover community. Young Ben Tzion would appear at his father’s events starting at the age of 5. In his teenage years, he studied in Bobover yeshivos both in Brooklyn and Bat Yam, in Eretz Yisroel. At age 18, he began serving as a Chazzan at the Jewish Center of Hillside, New Jersey, followed by a shul in the Bronx.

He then moved to Canada, where he served as a Chazzan in both Montreal and Canada. While in Canada, he studied under noted Chazzan Shmuel Baruch Taube and took courses at the Montreal Academy of Music.

In 1981, he was hired by the Bethel shul to serve as its chief Chazzan. The shul had been home to famous Chazzanim such as Mordechai Harshman, Moshe Koussevitzky, and Moshe Stern.

As his fame spread worldwide, Ben Tzion released numerous records, including a collaboration with members of the London Symphony Orchestra and another accompanied by the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra. He recorded other albums together with composer and conductor Eli Yaffe, leader of the choir of the Bais Haknesses Hagadol in Yerushalayim. .

The Levaya will take place today at 12:30 PM at Shomrei Hadaas in Boro Park.

יהי זכרו ברוך.