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Film, Video Collecting Jewish Cultural Treasures in a Post-WWII New York Lobby

Transcript: TEXT

About this Item

Title

  • Collecting Jewish Cultural Treasures in a Post-WWII New York Lobby

Summary

  • During the summer of 1948, only three years after the end of World War II, Ben Stonehill, a man devoted to Jewish culture, recorded recently-arrived Jewish survivors of the war who were temporarily housed in a hotel in upper Manhattan. The singers included men, women, and children. Stonehill collected over a thousand songs of many kinds: joyful as well as sad, mainly in Yiddish but also in Hebrew, Polish, and Russian. These songs are musical testimonies to the resilience of the survivors, a direct link to pre-war Jewish life in Eastern Europe, and a cultural treasure. The music and chatting that went on in between the songs tell not only of the singers' terrible traumas but also of their hopes, and reflect the sheer pleasure of reconnecting with others through song. In this talk, Isaacs describes the role of the Library of Congress in preserving this unique musical treasure. She plays some of these almost forgotten recordings and talks about the collector, the singers, and their times.

Names

  • Library of Congress
  • American Folklife Center, sponsoring body

Created / Published

  • Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, 2013-11-13.

Headings

  • -  Culture, Folklife
  • -  Culture, Performing Arts
  • -  Education
  • -  Government, World Affairs

Notes

  • -  Classification: General Works.
  • -  Classification: Political Science.
  • -  Classification: Social Sciences.
  • -  Miriam Isaacs.
  • -  Recorded on 2013-11-13.
  • -  Publishers.
  • -  Researchers.
  • -  Teachers.

Medium

  • 1 online resource

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • 2021689263

Online Format

  • video
  • image
  • online text

Additional Metadata Formats

Rights & Access

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Credit Line: Library of Congress

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Library Of Congress, and Sponsoring Body American Folklife Center. Collecting Jewish Cultural Treasures in a Post-WWII New York Lobby. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, -11-13, 2013. Video. https://www.loc.gov/item/2021689263/.

APA citation style:

Library Of Congress & American Folklife Center, S. B. (2013) Collecting Jewish Cultural Treasures in a Post-WWII New York Lobby. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, -11-13. [Video] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021689263/.

MLA citation style:

Library Of Congress, and Sponsoring Body American Folklife Center. Collecting Jewish Cultural Treasures in a Post-WWII New York Lobby. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, -11-13, 2013. Video. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2021689263/>.