Tanchum Portnoy

Tanchum Gershon Portnoy was born on 22 July 1951 in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Rabbi Eliezer Portnoy (died 1975), had studied at the Mir Yeshiva in Europe and helped facilitate the yeshiva's escape from Lithuania during the Holocaust, including direct contact with Japanese consul Chiune Sugihara over transit visas. Rabbi Eliezer later taught at Mercaz HaTorah in Montreal, served as principal of Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, and was a rabbi in Brooklyn.

Tanchum studied at Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim and at the Mir Yeshiva, receiving semikhah from Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz. He later completed a master's degree in psychology at Queens College. At the time of his first album he helped administer a rabbinical organisation on Long Island while pursuing graduate study. He lived for many years in Lawrence, New York, in the Five Towns.

Portnoy composed the melody for Eitz Chaim in the early 1970s and released it in February 1975 on the album Tanchumim (Hebrew for consolations, a play on his name). He was credited as composer, producer and director; Yisroel Lamm arranged and conducted; Avraham Yanon (Rabbi Alvin Wainhaus) sang the title setting. The LP (catalogue TG 201) is held in the Recorded Sound Archives at Florida Atlantic University and in the National Library of Israel; Shlomo Carlebach appeared as a guest soloist on other Portnoy compositions on the record.

The melody sets Proverbs 3:18 and 3:17 and continues into Hashivenu from Lamentations 5:21, the text sung as the Torah is returned to the ark. Tablet writer Menachem Butler later noted its short phrases, accessible range and suitability for unaccompanied congregational singing. Cantors and musicians, including Carlebach, helped popularise it across Orthodox, Conservative and Reform communities. Local variants arose, and the tune was often mislabelled as traditional until publishers such as Velvel Pasternak restored Portnoy's attribution. A second Tanchumim volume appeared in 2001. Later arrangements include Blue Fringe, Uncle Moishy, Transcontinental Music Publications choral editions, and Hal Leonard lead sheets.

In summer 2025, fifty years after his father's death, Portnoy and his wife Sara published Or Eliezer in Lakewood, New Jersey, collecting Rabbi Eliezer's writings and reconstructing the Mir rescue, including Portnoy's English essay A Son Reflects.

Portnoy was married to Sara Portnoy. The couple had four children: Eli, Amichai, Ilan and Gali. Five Towns community notices after his death described him as a longtime Lawrence resident remembered for warmth, kindness and generosity as well as for his music. Friends and communal writers linked the open, singable quality of Eitz Chaim to the character people associated with him in daily life.

Portnoy died on 12 September 2026, the first day of Rosh Hashanah, which fell on Shabbat that year, at the age of 75. He was buried at Eretz HaChaim Cemetery in Beit Shemesh, Israel, with the funeral held on Tuesday 15 September. Shiva was observed in New Milford and in Lawrence, New York. Public notices did not state a medical cause of death.

His family organised a worldwide Shabbat Shuvah tribute for 19 September 2026 (8 Tishrei 5787), asking synagogues to sing his Eitz Chaim melody when returning the Torah to the ark and to name him as its composer beforehand. A tribute website, eitzchaim.co, shared the original 1975 recording, family photographs and suggested synagogue announcements.

Portnoy is remembered as the composer of a melody that entered the soundtrack of Jewish worship so thoroughly that many singers never knew it had an author. Obituaries in Tablet, Matzav, 5 Towns Central and Canadian Jewish media stressed both that anonymity and the deliberate work of restoring credit. Through Or Eliezer he also sought to preserve his father's role in the Mir Yeshiva's wartime rescue. The continued congregational use of Eitz Chaim, and the posthumous Shabbat Shuvah sing-along campaign, mark a legacy measured less in celebrity than in a tune that communities treat as inheritance.