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?
Yiddish radio grew fewer and fewer, as
did its audience.
The Reed Johnson Immigration Act
of 1924 had already restricted immigra-
tion from Eastern Europe and marked
what Sapoznik calls "the beginning of
the end for a renewable Yiddish culture
in America." By the 1950s, whatever
vestiges of Yiddishkeit survived the
Holocaust now faced the inevitable pull
of assimilation, and as the generations
of Yiddish speakers faded into silence,
so did Yiddish radio.
PERRNINWICES: Wed. 7:30 p.m.
(Wed. March 13, 2 pan. matinee only no evening performance)
Feb. 20-March 24, 2002
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from page 77
Rescuing Yiddish Radio
Decades later, Sapoznik and Lanset
were laboring to resurrect it. But near-
ly 10 years into their work, they were
struggling to raise funds for continued
acquisition and preservation.
By 1994, plans for the documentary
had begun to stall when Sapoznik met
David Isay, an award-winning radio
documentarian. While working with
Isay on a project for Isay's production
company, Sound Portraits, Sapoznik
played him some of the recordings he'd
rescued.
"When I heard the swing version of
"Dayenu," I just pestered him to let
me get in on it," recalls Isay.
Sound Portraits proved to be a per-
fect partner. "We usually do social jus-
tice kinds of things," says Isay, "but
part of our mission is to celebrate hid-
den voices. These are ordinary people,
and the recordings are very immediate
and intimate."
The producers at Sound Portraits
joined Sapoznik in gathering anecdotes
and reminiscences from residents at
Jewish community centers and retire-
ment homes in New York and Florida.
For Sound Portraits associate producer
Yair Reiner, this was an especially grati-
fying part of the project.
"When you ask someone if they
remember Yiddish radio and this
look comes over his face," says
Reiner, "it's an incredible thing."
Over the next several years,
Sapoznik and Isay sifted through
more than 2,000 hours of accumu-
lated recordings and interviews.
Now, more than 15 years since
Henry Sapoznik first happened upon
those dusty discs, the Yiddish Radio
Project is finally set to premiere. It
will offer a survey of Yiddish radio
programs, with segments featuring
the dramas of Nahum Stutchkoff
and a show called Reunion, in which
a Holocaust survivor and his father
are reunited.
Because the majority of the record-
ings is in Yiddish, many of the seg-
ments will provide translations per-
formed by Yiddish theater veterans
Fyvush Finkel, Lillian Lux and
Seymour Rexite, as well as actors Eli
Wallach and Carl Reiner, who por-
trays a radio personality known as
"the Jewish Philosopher."
In addition to selections from
Yiddish Melodies in Swing, which ran
from 1938-1955, the series features
other musical segments, as well as
commercials of the era.
To coincide with the documen-
tary's 10-week run, Sound Portraits
and Sapoznik's folk arts organization
Living Traditions will launch a pro-
motional tour for which Sapoznik
has assembled an all-star band of vet-
eran klezmorim. (The tour stops at
Chicago's North Shore Center for
the Performing Arts on April 25. For
information, call 847-673-6300.)
In addition, a Web-based Yiddish
radio "museum" will go online, with
virtual "wings" added as each radio
segment airs. The site, at
www.YiddishRadioProject.org , will
offer a complete digital archive of
recordings that visitors can listen to
with the aid of the "Yid-O-Matic," a
Real Audio program that provides
textual translations of the Yiddish in
sync with the streaming audio.
A soundtrack of music from the
Project will be released in conjunc-
tion with the series launch, and a
two-CD collection from the entire
series will be released in June.
Reflecting on the culmination of
his efforts to rescue Yiddish radio,
Sapoznik prefers to see it as a begin-
ning.
"I hope this will open up a brand-
new field of study," he says, "a paral-
lel field to the mainstream radio his-
tory. It's the other golden age of
radio. And it shows how exuberant
and cutting edge Yiddish culture in
America really was." ❑
-- The Yiddish Radio Project airs on
consecutive Tuesdays beginning
March 19 during All Things
Considered, 4 p.m. on local NPR
affiliates WDET-101.9-FM,
WUOM-91.7-FM and WEMU-
89.1-FM.
Web visitors will be able to catch
the series, as well as hear additional
Yiddish radio shows with real-time
English text translations, and
explore other related visual and
text materials, on •
www.YiddishRadioProjectorg.