Yakov Koussevitzky was born in 1903, he was the second of the Koussevitsky boys born to Aita and Avigdor Koussevitsky in Smorgon, in Russian Poland.

From a very early age he took lessons in singing and Chazanut and studied with various tutors, including the famous Chazan Ravitch in Kharkov. As a youngster he was chorister in Vilna in the choirs of Chazanim Avraham Moshe Bernstein and Bernstein’s successor Eliyahu Zaludkowsky, who were both famous cantors in their time.

When his brother Moshe was Chazan in the Vilna State Synagogue, shortly after the end of the