After having studied the
Tanakh and
Talmud under different teachers, Minkovsky continued his Talmudical studies alone in the bet hamidrash of his native town. At the age of eighteen he began to study
Russian and
German, and he mastered these two languages. His first teacher in vocal music was his father; later he studied it under
Nissan Spivak, whom he succeeded as chief cantor of the
Choral Synagogue [
he] in
Kishinev.[3]
Minkovsky thereafter went to
Vienna, where he continued his studies under
Robert Fuchs, from whom he obtained a diploma as singer. He was afterwards successively cantor in
Kherson and
Lemberg. In 1881 he became cantor in
Odessa (in the great synagogue), but soon departed for
New York to work at the
Kahal Adath Jeshurun synagogue.[4][5] In 1892 he was called back to Odessa, where he served as cantor of the
Broder Synagogue for thirty years until its closure by the Bolsheviks in 1922.[6][7]
He returned to the United States in August 1923, dying there the following year at the age of 65.[8] Over 1,000 people attended his memorial service on the
Lower East Side, which included performances by
Yossele Rosenblatt and other well-known cantors.[9]
Moderne Liturgie in underzere Sinagogn in Rusland [Modern Liturgy in Our Synagogues in Russia] (in Yiddish). Odessa: Ḥ. N. Bialik. 1910.
Ein Vortrag von Oberkantor P. Minkowsky. Gehalten in dem Brody'er Tempel zu Odessa am Samstag, den 20 November 1910 zur Feier des 40-jährigen Jubiläums des Chordirigenten und Componisten Dawid Nowakowski (in German). Odessa: Ḥ. N. Bialik & S. Buryschkin. 1911.