Samuel E. Goldfarb was born in 1891 on the Lower East Side of New York City to a musical family. He studied music at Columbia University, supporting himself by playing piano in a nickelodeon and for a Yiddish vaudeville theater. Goldfarb was a prolific composer of songs and other music. With his brother, Israel Goldfarb, he composed hundreds of songs, and in 1925 the brothers compiled the first American collection of Jewish songs, the Jewish Songster. Samuel Goldfarb’s most famous song, “The Dreidel,” is sung during Chanukah by children throughout the world. Goldfarb was musical director for Temple de Hirsch in Seattle for 38 years. During that time he conducted many adult and children’s choirs, served as organist, taught classes, coached singers, and continued to compose and arrange music. Goldfarb died in Seattle in 1978.