was a Ukrainia-born American Jewish composer and pianist who composed over 135 works for piano and other instruments. He was one of the founders of the Jewish National Conservatory in Jerusalem before immigrating to the U.S. where he became "an influential voice in the promotion of American Jewish music" from the 1940s until his death
His uncle was Peter Weinberg, a prominent translator of Shakespeare and Heine into Russian. Jacob completed law school at Moscow University, but he never practiced, preferring his piano studies. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory of Music from 1901-1906, under many prominent teachers including Taneyev and Ippolito-Ivanov. In addition, he studied composition for a year in Vienna, under Sergei Taneyev. He taught piano as well; among his students were Josef Yasser, with whom he remained friends for many years to come.
Weinberg toured Russia as a pianist and also toured with Emil Rosenoff in their two-piano concerts from 1912 to 1916. He adapted Rachmaninoff's works to create a two-piano piece he called Rachmaniana. It was published and performed by Weinberg and Rosenoff. He was also very interested in preserving the unique melodies and music scales of Jewish religious and secular folk tunes. When the St. Petersburg Society for Jewish Folk Music was formed in 1908 by Joel Engel, Lazare Saminsky, and others, Jacob Weinberg and his Moscow-based peers formed the Moscow branch of this society. Then he returned to Odessa, where he taught at the Odessa Conservatory of Music.
With the advent of the Bolshevik Revolution, Weinberg spent two months in prison and then fled with his wife Theresa (née Bernstein) and his only child, a son, Walter, in 1922 to Palestine (now Israel). There he composed the first Hebrew opera, The Pioneers (Hechalutz). It won First Prize in an international composition contest, sponsored by the Philadelphia Sesquicentennial. There was a performance in Jerusalem in April, 1925. He taught piano; among his students was the pianist Mordecai Sandberg.
With the competition prize money of $1500, Weinberg took his family to New York.
His many other works include religious Jewish works; he set the Sabbath service to music in several versions. These works are still performed at Temple Emanu-el, a prominent Reform synagogue in Manhattan. He also composed many non-religious works. He was very interested in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and set it to music for a chorus and in three other non-singing versions. Aaron Copland attended one of the Lincoln concerts prior to composing his own Lincoln Portrait.
He joined the music faculty of the New York College of Music in 1929 where he taught for many years and later joined the faculty at Hunter College. Weinberg died of lung disease in New York on November 2, 1956 at the age of 77. His remains are buried at the Stephen Wise Cemetery in Ardsley, New York.
