Zylbercweig's Radio Hour

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ON THE AIR!

The Yiddish Radio Hour

with your esteemed hosts

Zalmen & Celia
Zylbercweig

After their marriage in Mexico City in 1947, Zalmen Zylbercweig and his wife Celia (seen above) and her daughter Shirley, moved to New York City. At the time Zalmen was the editor for "Der amerikaner (The Jewish American)," a Jewish gazette based in New York City, from 1937-1948. Celia, as Celia Silver, became an excellent writer for the same publication, interviewing many well-known Yiddish personalities for her column "In der froyen-velt (In the Women's World)," such as Yiddish great Maurice Schwartz. However, she was known especially for her interviews of prominent women, such as actresses Molly Picon, Stella and Celia Adler and Gertrude Berg (from "Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg").

Perhaps less than two years later, Zalmen received an offer to leave New York and move to Los Angeles, California, in order to launch his own Yiddish Radio Hour on the station KOWL. So he decided with his family to move to L. A., and there he and wife Celia broadcast their own Yiddish radio program, which broadcast both on weekdays and on Sunday. However, this was to be a short-lived experience.

In 1949, he moved to a home in the Fairfax area of Los Angeles with his family, where they built at their own expense a recording studio in the back of the family house, and the rest as they say, is history.

For the next twenty or so years, he and his lovely wife Celia broadcast their own daily (except Saturday) "Zylbercweig's Daily Yiddish and Jewish -English Radio Hour (The Yiddishe Shtunde)," on such Los Angeles radio stations as KALI and KBLA, usually for a half-hour during the week and an hour on Sunday.

Most of the programs were in Yiddish, and most all featured commentary, guest speakers, actors, composers, authors, poets, rabbis, politician, comedians, musicians and a number of personalities from the Yiddish stage. Whichever personality would come to Los Angeles, would come see the Zylbercweigs, visit their home and be interviewed in their studio.

Here at "On the Air!," the Museum of Family History is presenting to you rebroadcasts of some of the Zylbercweig radio programs, mostly composed of partial or complete rebroadcasts, each one for your listening pleasure. Here there will be included audio files that were mostly likely part of a broadcast but exists now on its own, as a single recording.

Whether or not you can understand the Yiddish language, you have a unique opportunity to be transported back in time, and get a feel for the Jewish Los Angeles of the '50s and '60s, and gain a sense of the heart and soul that Zalmen and Celia put into their radio work, a labor of love. It should be noted that at the same period of time he and Celia were broadcasting their programs, Zalmen was working on the next five volumes of his magnificent opus, the "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre." While Zalmen was working and traveling to accomplish this dream, Celia took charge of the broadcasting, meeting the guests, meeting with sponsors, etc.

Some segments of the broadcasts will be in English, but most will be purely in Yiddish. The Museum is looking for volunteers to translate transcripts of their radio programs from Yiddish to English, so if there is any one who wishes to do so, or wishes to donate funds to the Museum so that a professional translator may be paid for their efforts, please contact us.

Here is a listing of broadcast dates and or topics of the shows, as well as segments that exist as separate recordings, which are not associated with any particular show, at least to my knowledge:

So now, please enjoy the shows!

Regards,

Steven Lasky

Founder and Director
Museum of the Yiddish Theatre