p. 257, Pinsk Yizkor Book, Vol II.

By M.S. Gshori

Born in the small town of Pieschena (5610 - Shvat 5682 (1831 - 1912] )
on the Niemen River, Minsk Geb. The son of Hayim Meir Gurin the
cantor, who was a shochet in town. Until the age of 18 he studied at
the yeshivas of Minsk and married the daughter of Moshe Symeir.

At the age of 20 he moved to his relatives in Pinsk -- Levi Yitzhak
Nimowitz and Abba Rosenthal -- in order to continue his studies and to
prepare for the rabbinate. He became very friendly with the
prodigiously brilliant Rabbi Eliezer Moshe Halevi Horowitz and with
all of Pinsk's scholarly community. While he studied in Pinsk, his
relatives asked him to teach their marriage eligible sons, because he
was a gifted teacher. Against his will he became a tutor at the homes
of Pinsk's wealthy families and was known as "Avraham Leib the
kapolier". His students became prominent persons, including Shmuel
Noah Gottlieb -- the famous Pinsk shohhet and others. (Later on Chaim
Weizmann also became a pupil of his.) As he was a great musician and
a singing aficionado, with beautiful ringing lyric tenor voice, he
became friendly with the unforgettable cantor Yoel Zelig Strode and
started to learn musical notes from him. At the same time he studied
ritual slaughtering and made it his occupation, from which he made a
living until the end of his days. While at the home of the famous
philanthropist Leib Sultz while completing his cantorial and ritual
slaughtering duties, he started to compose his own works. He served
for about six years as a cantor in Yanove. In the intermediate days
of Sukkot a delegation came from the town of Motele (birth place of
Chaim Weizmann) and than he was appointed as a Cantor-Shohet. In the
beginning there arose a divisive controversy over him, but Rabbi
Eliezer Moshe Halevi extinguished the fire of the dispute together
with the Motele's community council, and there he remained a cantor
and a shohet. He always commented proudly about Pinsk's influence on
his cantorship.

At the age of 81 he died in Motele in Shvat 5682 and one of his sons,
Yaakov Gofseyeff inherited his cantorial talents. He is the famous
cantor at Congregation Shomrei Emunah in St. Louis MO in America.