Historic YIVO Radio Program on WEVD: A Joint Project with the Cloakmakers Union (1964)

This  second episode, which originally aired on January 19, 1964, features host Sheftl Zak interviewing Reva Mark, daughter of scholar Yudl Mark, about her work collecting materials about American Jewish life in the early 20th century, a joint project between YIVO and the Joint Board of the Cloakmakers Union, and about her experiences studying and teaching Yiddish.

Sheftl Zak was a Yiddish actor and a director of the Yiddish theater Undzer teatr (Our theater).

From 1963-1976, YIVO had its own program on WEVD, the radio station established by the Socialist Party of America in 1927 (its call letters stand for the initials of American socialist leader Eugene V. Debs), which was purchased by the Jewish Daily Forward in 1932 and became a major venue from Yiddish programming.

YIVO used its spot on WEVD for Yiddish-language interviews and discussions with leading New York Yiddish cultural figures, as well as for reporting on its own scholarly and cultural work.

A new podcast of this program in the order in which it was originally broadcast will be posted here every two weeks.

Presentation of series curated by Matt Temkin, YIVO Sound Archives.

Listen to the program [in Yiddish].