Radio's Golden Age

A new series celebrates the heyday of Yiddish radio in America
Edited by Mary Eileen O'Connor

Yiddish Radio Group Forgotten for more than half a century, Yiddish radio is back on the airwaves.

"The Yiddish Radio Project," airing Tuesday afternoons in the first hour of All Things Considered, offers an unprecedented glimpse into Jewish immigrant culture in America in the first half of the 20th century through a series of stories about the golden age of Yiddish-American radio broadcasting from the 1930s to '50s.

The Yiddish Radio Project stems from one fateful day 15 years ago when musician and historian Henry Sapoznik walked into an old New York City storeroom. There, among looming stacks of broken records and musty pamphlets, Sapoznik made the discovery of a lifetime: a handful of single-cut aluminum transcription disks of Yiddish radio shows from the 1930s and '40s.

Since then, Sapoznik has combed attics, flea markets and even dumpsters to find and preserve all of the last surviving remnants of Yiddish radio. "You have to remember, these are one-of-a-kind recordings," Sapoznik explains. "So much was so close to being lost forever. What choice did I have?"

The collection has grown to more than 500 hours on 1,000 fragile disks, with everything from man-on-the-street interviews and news programs to searing dramas, swinging music shows and even commercials -- the last recorded vestiges of a people in the midst of a cultural renaissance.

Sapoznik collaborated with award-winning producer Dave Isay to create this series celebrating these recordings and the forgotten radio geniuses who made them. Isay didn't need too much convincing. "It was like opening up King Tut's Tomb," he says.

The series includes such segments as "The Jewish Philosopher," which features C. Israel Lutsky, who was the first person to dispense advice on the air, and "Yiddish Melodies in Swing," a show mixing traditional Yiddish klezmer music with popular American swing.

A cast that includes Carl Reiner, Eli Wallach and Isaiah Sheffer translate these Yiddish language broadcasts (the original programs alternated between Yiddish and English). "The shows are mostly in Yiddish, but the voices and spirit captured on them is universal," Isay says.

"Taken together, the collection gives us this incredibly intimate snapshot of American Jewish life in the 1930s and '40s," he says. "You see the collision of Yiddish and American cultures, the day-to-day lives of immigrants struggling to make it in a new land and the dawning reality of the genocide occurring across the ocean."

The series airs Tuesday afternoons through May on All Things Considered, heard at 4 p.m. on WHYY 91FM (90.9).

WHYY presents "The Yiddish Radio Project: Live!" at the Prince Music Theater

The Yiddish Radio All Star Band, featuring klezmer music legends Peter Sokolow, Paul Pincus and Julie Epstein, brings their traditional klezmer and Yiddish-Swing style live to the Prince Music Theater on April 1 at 8 p.m. for a multimedia spectacular celebrating the forgotten pioneers of Yiddish radio.

Master of ceremonies Henry Sapoznik, producer of NPR's "Yiddish Radio Project" series will share the best clips from his precious collection of audio recordings, which have not been heard publicly in more than 50 years. Co-producer David Isay will present the finale of the "Yiddish Radio Project," a documentary about a 1947 program that reunited Holocaust survivors live on the air, and introduce one of the survivors this reunion featured. Guests of WHYY will be able to meet and greet the musicians and producers after the performance.

Tickets to the event are $25 for WHYY members and $30 for non-members. The Prince Music Theater is located on Chestnut Street at Broad Street in Philadelphia. Call (215) 569-9700 for tickets and information.