The collection of Cantor Shabtai Ackerman consists of manuscript music, print music, personal songbooks, personal papers, programs, and pictures relating to his professional life as a cantor. Music books have been cataloged and relocated to Rare Books. Audio recordings have been relocated to Judaica Sound Archives. Cantor Ackerman was a world-renowned cantor with a powerful dramatic tenor voice. He was wounded by the Nazis in World War II and chanted services in the great Moscow Synagogue as a refugee in 1945. After the War, he was appointed permanent Cantor of the Baron De Rothschild and Ahavas Achim (Fraterna) Synagogue in Bucharest. He also served as Chief Cantor for the Great Synagogue of Tel-Aviv, Congregation Beth Abraham Hillel Moses in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and Temple Beth Israel in Deerfield Beach, Florida. He received an honorary doctoral degree in music from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where scholarships in his name have since been established. Cantor Ackerman received two Kavod awards from the Cantors Assembly of America. He passed away on July 27, 2007.
