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At age 8, Strom began taking violin lessons 
and never stopped honing his skills. He played 
the violin all through high school and college, 
becoming a violin virtuoso. “There was always 
music in my house,
” says Strom, who is the 
eldest of eight siblings. “It was always appreci-
ated and encouraged.
” 
When Strom was 12 years old, his dad 
accepted a professorship in education at San 
Diego State University (SDSU) and the fam-
ily moved to California. His father, David, a 
Wayne State grad, was one of the founding 
members of the Chabad in San Diego. 
Strom’s dedication to Judaism motivated 
him to travel around the world, studying 
and exploring Yiddish and Jewish cultures. 
When he was a junior in college, he studied in 
Sweden for a year, making connections in the 
Jewish community and even leading a seder in 
Uppsala, Sweden.

A LOVE OF KLEZMER 
Strom went on to earn two undergraduate 
degrees at SDSU and a master’s degree in 
Yiddish studies at NYU. He was planning to 
go to law school, but after hearing a band in 

San Diego play klezmer music, he knew that’s 
what he wanted to do. 
 “It was back in 1981 when klezmer was 
just being revived in the United States,
” he 
says. “I liked the music a lot — it was unlike 
anything I had heard in shul. I went up to the 
band leader, explained I was a violinist and 
asked if I could join their group. They weren’t 
interested, so I decided to form my own band. 
But I wanted to be different from them, and I 
wondered if there was klezmer music that was 
unknown in the United States. I spent months 
doing extensive research and wondered if 
there were archives in Eastern Europe where I 
could gather more information.
” 
Strom flew to the Soviet Union, traveled to 
Austria, Yugoslavia, Hungry, Romania and all 
over the Eastern bloc, making connections 
with Jews in those communities. It was there 
he met Holocaust survivors, learned about 
their relatives who perished in the camps, met 
klezmer musicians and recorded their music 
on his tape recorder. To earn money to live, 
Strom would play the violin on the streets. 
All his investigating paid off. Strom brought 
attention to a klezmer music that had been 

forgotten. He began writing about the music 
and his travel experiences and people he met 
along the way. Over the past three decades, 
he has published 15 books, including The 
Last Jews of Eastern Europe (1987), A Journey 
Through the Jewish Culture of Eastern Europe 
(2004), Uncertain Roads: Searching for the 
Gypsies (1996), The Book of Klezmer: The History, 
The Music, The Folklore (2002), and a children’s 
book, The Wedding That Saved a Town (2008). 
He has also penned a series called Shloyml 
Boml; his most recent book, Sholyml Boyml 
and His Purim Adventure, came out this past 
spring. “My books are available in English and 
Yiddish,
” he says. “Most of them can be found 
on Amazon and Etsy as well as other places.
”

MAKING HIS MARK
Strom also made his mark in the film industry, 
writing and directing films. He has directed 
10 award-winning documentaries, including 
The Last Klezmer (1994), A Letter to Wedgewood 
(2013), and American Socialist: The Life and 
Times of Eugene Victor Debs, Audience Favorite 
Award at the Workers Unite Film Festival 

COURTESY OF YALE STROM

Yale Strom & Hot Pstromi

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