Henry Sapoznik – From Under the Fig Tree

Bake sale

joselitSeptember 1, 2014November 16, 2017Leave a comment

This past week brought word of the closing of two American Jewish institutions: Entenmann’s, the producer of all kinds of baked goods, and KlezKamp, the producer of yidishkayt in all of its varied manifestations. After more than 100 years on Long Island, the Entenmann’s plant will shut its doors and, if company press releases are to be believed, relocate elsewhere. KlezKamp, a much younger phenomenon -- it will have been around for 30 years -- will be calling it a day at the conclusion of its final session, in late December.

Entenmann's truck, Totowa, NJ — Entenmann's Delivery Truck, NJ. Flickr/erlyrizrjr

Thanks to its kosher certification, Entenmann’s went on to become a staple in many traditional American Jewish households, its doughnuts and crumb cakes a fixture of the synagogue kiddush as well. I never cared much for them. To me, they tasted too much of the chemical preservatives whose names (thiamine mononitrate and riboflavin) were dutifully listed on the outside of the blue and white box with the cellophane window. But I know hundreds of people, including the members of my extended family, who not only relished their Entenmann’s, but also made a point of incorporating its consumption into their Shabbat morning ritual: a source of fortification before heading out for shuel.

In other American Jewish households, most famously that of Shalom Auslander’s, the Entenmann box served as a distraction. In his celebrated memoir, Foreskin’s Lament, Auslander writes of having run through all of the reading material he had assembled for Shabbat. “By Saturday afternoon I was slumped over the kitchen table, reading the side of the Entenmann’s doughnut box for the ten thousandth time. The history of Entenmann’s, the price per pound of Entenmann’s, the ingredients of Entenmann’s; I knew more about Entenmann’s doughnuts than most of the Entenmanns themselves.”

KlezKamp, too, deserves to be celebrated and chronicled in print. The brainchild of Henry Sapoznik, one of the founding fathers of the klezmer revival movement, it brought together for one week and under the roof of a down-at-its-heels Catskills hotel the most widely variegated community of Jews I’ve ever encountered. What bound everyone together was a shared fidelity to Yiddish and the cultural milieu from which it emerged.

The accommodations left a lot to be desired and the food was nothing to write home about -- a box of Entenmann’s doughnuts would have been like manna -- but these physical limitations were more than offset by the sheer, unadulterated exuberance of the experience. I’ve yet to find anything else like it. Teaching in the morning, attending someone else’s classes on language, song or cooking in the afternoon, jamming at night and dancing, dancing, dancing until the very wee hours of the morning -- KlezKamp epitomized Jewish experiential education at its very best.

I, along with hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of its fans, will greatly mourn its passing. I know I speak for the community of KlezKampers when I say that we are exceedingly grateful to Henry and his dedicated team for nourishing our spirits, fortifying our souls and enabling us to experience firsthand the joys of Yiddish.

Reverb 1

joselitSeptember 9, 2012November 16, 20171 Comment

Over the years, I’ve attended lots of symposia but never one that began with the ringing of chimes and concluded with a most hearty and prolonged round of applause. These two sounds, along with the sight of presenters swaying to the beat of “Yiddish Melodies in Swing” or singing the praises of the “Cohen on the Radio” vaudeville sketches with their catch-all phrase, “Radio, Shmadio,” were in full throttle at last week’s Library of Congress salute to Henry Sapoznik and the donation of his collection of Yiddish radio memorabilia.

Old radio — Old Radio. Flickr/Christos Kotsakis

Now a part of the American Folklife Center where, one hopes, it will receive a new lease on life, this treasure trove of auditory materials underscores the vibrancy of American Jewish life at the grass roots. Whether poking fun at “Sam the man who made the pants too long,” or rendering the familiar Campbell Soup jingle auf yidish, as in “Campbell Soup iz – um um - immer gut,” or introducing the very latest Hebrew folksongs, Yiddish radio informed, entertained and sustained audiences of the interwar years.

Fifty years later, Yiddish radio had the same effect on the nearly 200 people in attendance at this symposium. It held us in its static-y embrace. At many a conference, it’s customary to find more participants holding impromptu conversations in the hallway than paying attention to the proceedings.

But here, audience members sat for hours on end and listened, actually listened, to the fragments of Yiddish radio programming that have somehow survived. Nothing if not appreciative and engaged, they laughed at the funny bits, scratched their heads at other moments and consistently plied the presenters with all manner of questions.

It’s a measure of the symposium’s success – and of the enduring cultural value of Yiddish radio – that at its conclusion, people were reluctant to sign off.

Radio Days 5

joselitAugust 26, 2012November 16, 20175 Comments

Nearly thirty years ago, when musician and musicologist Henry Sapoznik first stumbled across a cache of aluminum transcription disks of Yiddish radio shows from interwar America, little did he suspect that they would find a home at the Library of Congress.

Abandoned in an attic, deposited in a dumpster, the stuff of rummage and tag sales, these acoustic artifacts, which ranged from Yiddish Melodies in Swing to Stuhmer’s Pumpernickel Program, were destined to fade away entirely had not Mr. Sapoznik recognized their value and saved them, often just in the nick of time.

But then, this stalwart champion of American Jewry’s vernacular culture did even more than that. Working together with the award-winning radio producer Dave Isay and the celebrated sound preservationist Andy Lanset, he made sure, for one thing, to preserve this material. For another, he introduced a new generation of listeners, among them historians and linguists, musicians and folklorists, to the contents of Yiddish radio by creating the Yiddish Radio Project,which aired on NPR in 2002. Once forgotten and marginalized, the sounds and sensibilities of Yiddish radio have become an integral part of how contemporary American Jews understand themselves.

Most recently, the storied American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress acquired Sapoznik’s collection of more than 1000 Yiddish radio programs, where they have now taken their rightful place as a part of the nation’s cultural patrimony.

To mark this acquisition, the Library of Congress will be hosting a two-day symposium, “The Stations That Spoke Your Language,” on September 6th and 7th. With programming as varied as Yiddish radio itself, it promises to be a lively and stimulating occasion. More to the point, perhaps, this gathering enables a grateful public to express its deepest thanks to Henry Sapoznik for attuning us to our history.