Jewish World Review Dec. 8, 1998 /19 Kislev, 5759
By Jon Kalish
WE MAY BE THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK but with gems like KCRW's new anthology of
Jewish stories, we could become The People Of The Compact Disk.
The Southern California public radio station has just released its second
collection of Jewish stories read aloud by some of Hollywood's more
prominent Jewish artists. If you are fortunate enough to live in one of the
cities with public radio stations that have plans to broadcast "Jewish
Stories From the Old World to the New," by all means tune in.
It is unclear whether WNYC in New York City will carry the programs but out
on Long Island WPBX in Southampton will be airing them, as will WFHU in
Fairfield, Connecticut. The 18-hour series will also be heard in San
Francisco, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Austin, Madison, St. Paul and
Atlanta. The national network for the blind, In Touch, is planning to run
an hour a day (repeated twice daily) during the eight days of Chanukah and
the remainder in February and March. With the exception of its affiliates
in New Orleans and Memphis, the In Touch network uses sub carrier
frequencies to broadcast, so a special receiver is needed to pick up its
signal.
Original klezmer music by Yale Strom is used to bridge the stories and the
series is narrated by Leonard Nimoy, who seems to have found a second
acreer in narrating documentaries with a Jewish focus. Nimoy's old Star
Trek pal William Shatner is one of the stars who reads for the series.
Edward Asner, Elliot Gould, Carl Reiner, Julie Kavner, Hector Elizondo,
Jerry Stiller and JoBeth Williams read stories by I.L. Peretz, I.B. Singer,
Itzik Manger, Sholom Asch, Bernard Malamud and E. L. Doctorow, among
others. Richard Dreyfuss apparently declined to read Sholom Alechim's
"Dreyfus in Kassrilevke," which deals with news of the Dreyfus Affair
reaching the remote shtel of Kassrilevke. Instead the actor reads Alechim's
"Hodel," in which Tevye's daughter gets caught up in the revolutionary
passions of the day.
KCRW's manager, Ruth Seymour, is quite possibly the only public radio
station manager in America who is fluent in Yiddish. She grew up in a
"Workman's Circle home" in the Bronx and studied with Max Weinrich.
Seymour's connection to Nimoy goes back quite a ways. Before Nimoy's ears
got pointy, he produced radio drama at KPFK, the Pacifica station in Los
Angeles where Seymour worked before taking over the reins at KCRW. The
feisty station manager has built what was once a junior college radio
station with a minimal listenership into a public radio powerhouse.
Excerpts of "Jewish Stories From the Old World to the New" are in RealAudio
form on the KCRW web site.
The entire 18-hour
series is available on compact disk and cassette ($100 plus $5 shipping for
the first set and $75 for each additional set) and those who are not
inclined to order on-line can print out an order form from the web site and
mail in a check. For telephone orders, call
Hollywood goes heimish?
JWR contributor Jon Kalish is a Manhattan-based journalist
who frequently reports for NPR.