Golinkin, Mordecai
GOLINKIN, MORDECAI
GOLINKIN, MORDECAI (1875–1963), conductor and pioneer of opera in Israel. Golinkin was born in Izluchistaya in the Ukrainian province of Kherson and as a boy sang in the choir of Phinehas *Minkowsky. In 1918 he became conductor at the Maryinsky Opera Theater in Petrograd. He conceived the idea of establishing an Opera in Palestine and gave a concert with the singer Chaliapin to raise funds for the project on which he published a pamphlet in 1920. In 1923 Golinkin immigrated to Palestine and in July of that year staged a performance in Hebrew of La Traviata, with local and guest singers, in Tel Aviv. His company, the Palestine Opera, gave intermittent opera performances until 1948, when he became conductor of the Israel Opera, a post he held until 1953. Golinkin's writings include The Temple of Art (1927, Hebrew and English), a volume of memoirs Me-Heikhalei Yefet le-Oholei Shem ("From the Palaces of Japheth to the Tents of Shem," 1947), and Ha-Historyah ba-Opera ("History in the Opera," 1961).
[Yemima Gottlieb]