Yakov Gottlieb Milman was a cantor and composer. He was born in 1852 in the village Trostyanets (Kherson province of the Russian Empire, now Ukraine). The father is a shoyhet.

In 1857 the family moved to Odessa, where Yakov was received as a chorister (viola) in the chorus of Bezalel Odessera. Already at the age of 9 independently conducted a synagogue service, and at the age of 12 led the choir, one of the choristers in which was subsequently the famous cantor Jacob Bachmann.

After receiving the post of cantor in Odessa, in order to avoid being drafted into the tsarist army he adopted the name “Gottlieb”.

In 1870 he married and moved to Ackerman, where he served as a cantor for 3 years. Later he was a cantor in Elizavetgrad (now Dnepropetrovsk) and the White Church, after which he returned to Ackerman.

His nickname “Yankel der Heyzeriker / Hoarse Yankel” he received in 1881, after during the pogrom was forced to hide in a cold damp basement and his voice hoarse. But his performance skill concealed this shortcoming. Chaim Blindman (Yeruham Khakatan), who heard the singing of Gottlieb in the Berdichev synagogue, said: “Do not call him the hoarse Yankel, he is Yankel-shoikhet, for he cut everyone behind him.”

Gottlieb’s fame was so great that he was specially invited to Vilna, where he sang 13 Saturdays, and to Warsaw, where he sang 9 Saturdays. In 1900, Jacob Gottlieb was in Kiev, where he died in the synagogue during the Sabbath prayer “Av ha-rahamim / God the Merciful”.

All his three sons also became cantors.