Shlomo Carlebach’s Guitar Goes on Block

STRUMMIN? RABBI: Counter-culture Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach shares song with author Aryae Coopersmith. Image by Moshe Yitzchak Kussoy
Judaica and other items belonging to the influential late rabbi-musician Shlomo Carlebach will be auctioned next month.
The Feb. 29 auction at J. Greenstein & Co.’s Auction House in Cedarhurst, New York, will also include Judaica owned by Harvard law professor and author Alan Dershowitz.
In all, the auction will feature 268 “rare and valuable objects,” including 32 from Carlebach’s estate and 28 from Dershowitz’s collection, the auction house announced in a Jan. 12 news release.
Among the objects belonging to Carlebach, who was known to many of his followers and fans as “Reb Shlomo,” are his guitar (opening price $12,000), tefillin ($11,000), piano ($13,000), High Holiday gartel (a belt used by some Hasidic Jews during prayer, this one’s opening price is $1,500) and personal appointment book from 1991-’92 ($1,900).
A charismatic Orthodox rabbi known for his Hasidic-influenced songwriting, his musical legacy and his outreach to Jews of all backgrounds, Carlebach, who was born in Berlin, died in 1994 at age 69.
“I am excited by this opportunity to bring new life into the Carlebach foundation and jump-start the legacy of my father,” Neshama Carlebach, daughter of the late rabbi and heir to his estate, said in a statement provided by the auction house.
“His voice of Torah, his music and his energy are so powerful and present in the world; he is still so present because his belief and hopes are still here. This auction, bringing his items back into the world, will create new moments for him and will take his legacy to a new level.”
J. Greenstein & Co. Auction House claims to be the only auction house in the United States that is “solely devoted to the sale of Jewish ritual objects.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Naftali Bennett is back: Former Israeli prime minister will make another run at Netanyahu
-
Fast Forward Citing post-Holocaust doctrine, Germany seeks to deport 4 pro-Palestinian protesters, including one American
-
Fast Forward Trump administration freezes research funding to Princeton amid antisemitism investigations
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.