Re: Ruth Rubin's Obit

[Carla da Silva <cdas...>]

I don't know how well known it is among Yiddish singers that there is a
wonderful documentary about Ruth Rubin. I was lucky to be able to copy it
from Judith Cohen when I was staying in Toronto this summer. I'm sure it
must be in the YIVO, but several well informed people I spoke to didn't know
about it. It's worth trying to find it.  It shows Ruth working with people,
collecting songs, performing, etc. In general:  it's her life story.

carla

----- Original Message -----
From: <MaxwellSt (at) aol(dot)com>
To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Saturday, June 17, 2000 5:36 PM
Subject: Ruth Rubin's Obit


> 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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