Re: Ruth Rubin's Obit

[George Robinson <GRComm...>]

there is a longer, more detailed obit of Rubin in today's NY Times. I
don't have the URL for it because at the moment my browser is acting
up,but the Times is at nytimes.com. Just for the record, the obit in the
Times was written by Margalit Fox, my very talented wife.

George Robinson


MaxwellSt (at) aol(dot)com wrote:
> 
> Ruth Rubin
> 
> NEW YORK (AP) - Ruth Rubin, a scholar, collector and performer of Yiddish
> folk songs, died Sunday in Mamaroneck, N.Y. She was 93.
> 
> One of the first women to become a prominent folklorist, Rubin was also among
> the first American scholars to document the culture of Eastern European Jews.
> Her collection of about 2,000 recorded songs was a cornerstone of the Yiddish
> revival movement in the 1970s.
> 
> Rubin's books included ``A Treasury of Jewish Folksong'' (1950) and ``Voices
> of a People: The Story of Yiddish Folksong'' (1963). Her studio recordings of
> the songs for Folkways in the 1940s are available through the Smithsonian
> Institution.
> 
> In the mid-1930s Rubin began concentrating seriously on folklore, going on to
> study with Max Weinreich and, during World War II, translating diaries
> smuggled out of ghettos and Nazi camps.
> 
> With the revelation of the extent of the Holocaust, and its sweeping
> destruction of Yiddish culture, Rubin became determined to preserve a piece
> of what remained by making field recordings
> 
> Dragging a bulky reel-to-reel tape recorder from house to house in cities in
> Canada and the United States, she captured well- and lesser-known songs that
> flourished in more intimate, domestic settings, like the kitchen or over the
> cradle.
> 
> Unlike klezmer music, which was performed primarily by men at public
> occasions, the songs Rubin recorded were sung almost exclusively by women, a
> group largely ignored by the cultural chroniclers of her day.
> 
> AP-NY-06-17-00 0550EDT
> 

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