About the Yiddish Radio Project

A co-production of Sound Portraits Productions and Living Traditions, the Yiddish Radio Project is dedicated to rescuing every surviving recording from the golden age of Yiddish radio and to disseminating knowledge and interest in the forgotten radio renaissance these recordings bring to life. Through a series of NPR documentaries, a national tour of live events, an accompanying website, and CD compilations, the Yiddish Radio Project is committed to making a lasting educational, cultural, and artistic contribution to the appreciation of this important, overlooked chapter in the American experience.

Yiddish Radio Project Staff

  Henry Sapoznik, Producer
Henry Sapoznik is also a record producer, composer, author and performer of traditional Yiddish and American music. A pioneering scholar and performer of klezmer music, he founded the Archives of Recorded Sound at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and was its first director from 1982-1994. Spearheading the renewal of interest in klezmer music with his pioneering group Kapelye, he is also co-founder and Executive Director of "Living Traditions," sponsor of the internationally acclaimed Yiddish cultural event "KlezKamp: The Yiddish-Folk Arts Program." Henry is a Grammy-nominated producer/performer of historical and new recordings of Yiddish instrumental and vocal music and designed the score for the Aviva Kempner documentary film The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg. His book Klezmer! Jewish Music from Old World to Our World (Scribner, 2000) won the 2000 ASCAP Deems-Taylor Award for Excellence in Music Scholarship.

 

 Dave Isay, Producer
Dave Isay is the founder of Sound Portraits Productions. Over the past thirteen years his radio documentary and feature work has won almost every award in broadcasting including three Peabody Awards, two Robert F. Kennedy Awards, and two Livingston Awards for young journalists. David has also received the Prix Italia (Europe's oldest and most distinguished broadcasting honor), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1994) and most recently a MacArthur Fellowship (2000). He is the author (or co-author) of three books based on Sound Portraits radio stories: Holding On (W.W. Norton & Co., 1995); Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago (Scribner, 1997); and Flophouse (Random House, 2000).

 

  Yair Reiner, Producer
Yair Reiner joined the Yiddish Radio Project team team in July 1999, whereupon he was requested to learn Yiddish by September. Among his current assignments are creating the Yiddish Radio Project Web site and co-producing the Yiddish Radio Project: LIVE! road show. Prior to joining the Yiddish Radio Project, Yair was the managing editor of Suitcase: A Journal of Transcultural Traffic. He is also the translator of The Aquariums of Pyongyang, the first book-length account of life in the North Korean gulags.

Additional staff: David Miller (Associate Producer), Karen Callahan (Production Assistant), Tony Field (Production Assistant), Michael Hsu (New Media Producer).