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The Yiddish Radio Project
All Things Considered Series Highlights Rare Recordings
 March 19: Series introduction and overview.
 Read previews of all stories in this 10-part series.
Forgotten for more than half a century, Yiddish radio is back. All Things Considered presents the Yiddish Radio Project, a series of stories about the golden age of Yiddish-American broadcasting in the 1930s to '50s.
Gleaned from a rare collection of almost-forgotten recordings of classic Yiddish radio shows, the Yiddish Radio Project again airs radio programming last broadcast more than half a century ago.
Musician and historian Henry Sapoznik collaborated with Dave Isay, the MacArthur Award-winning radio documentary producer, to create the multi-part All Things Considered series celebrating these recordings and the forgotten radio geniuses who made them.
The series features translations of the Yiddish language broadcasts (the original programs alternate between Yiddish and English) by a cast that includes Eli Wallach, Carl Reiner and Isaiah Sheffer, but for Isay these translations are purely linguistic, not cultural. "The shows are mostly in Yiddish, but the voices and spirit captured on them is universal."
Jay Kernis, senior vice president for programming at NPR, agrees. "We are thrilled that almost 10 million public radio listeners will be able to hear these historic recordings. This is an important part of not only Jewish history, but American history as well."
Shows in This Series
March 19 -- Series introduction: An overview of the forgotten history of Yiddish radio -- and how one man discovered and rescued its last remnants.
April 2 -- Focus on the intense radio dramas of Nahum Stutchkoff, who also compiled the first and only Yiddish thesaurus.
April 9 -- The little-known story of Charles A. Levine, the first man to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an airplane -- as a passenger.
April 16 -- C. Israel Lutsky, "The Jewish Philosopher," was the first advice columnist of the air. Heaping abuse and advice in equal measure, he was nevertheless one of Yiddish radio's most beloved personalities.
April 23 -- "And now a word from our sponsor." They were the seven most dreaded words on Yiddish radio -- until the "Joe and Paul" jingle hit the airwaves. Focus on commercials from a parallel radio universe.
April 30 -- Crooner Seymour Rexite enjoyed a 40-year career singing American pop standards -- in Yiddish. Whatever song was popular, Rexite's wife would translate, and Seymour would sing it on his show.
May 7 -- Focus on Victor Packer, an avant-garde poet turned radio programming director, who experimented with almost every show format imaginable in a desperate attempt to fill 16 consecutive 15-minute slots.
May 14 -- Rabbi Rubin's court of the air reveals the struggles of poor Jews living in New York City's Lower East Side.
May 21 -- Decades before the word "Holocaust" entered our vocabulary, a radio series called Reunion featured the voice of Holocaust survivor Siegbert Freiberg telling his own story.
Browse more NPR stories on Yiddish.
Other Resources
• Visit the official Web site of the Yiddish Radio Project.
• Yiddish Radio Project producer Henry Sapoznik is also the executive director of LivingTraditions.org, supporting education in "community-based traditional folk culture."
• The Yiddish Voice, a radio show based in Boston, Mass., features live Web audio on Wednesdays.
• Learn more about the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass.
• Read about the Spoken Yiddish Language Project at Columbia University.
• Make Yiddish online with the virtual Yiddish Typewriter.
• Web site for the Dora Teitelboim Center for Yiddish Culture.
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