Cantor Rosenblatt sings in "The Jazz Singer"

Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt appeared as himself in the 1927 talkie "The Jazz Singer" starring Al Jolson. As the first entry into the Museum's "Great Cantors" room (which may be found by visiting the Museum's plan for its Second Floor), a webpage has been created so you may enjoy a film clip of this performance.

You will see Al Jolson as the character Jakie Robin, attending the Rosenblatt concert while conflicted between his desire to become an entertainer and the wish of his father, a Cantor, who would like Jakie to follow in his footsteps. In this YouTube video, Cantor Rosenblatt sings a secular Yiddish song.

One can find the aforementioned page by clicking here.

MOFH Film Series: Now Playing until April 18th

Now showing within the Museum of Family History's Film Series, through April 18th:

Film no. 1:

Archival film from 1936 showing the Jewish district of Kazimierz in Krakow (3 mins, 26 secs). Most of these buildings can be visited today and are in a similar condition - only the people who walked those streets are long since gone.

The original [version] of this film is in the Polish film archives in ul. Chelmska in Warsaw. -- From YouTube.

Note that there is another version of this film on YouTube that states the film is of Kazimierz in 1938-9, not 1936.

This short film "The Jews of Krakow's Kazimierz District," can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/fs-krakow-kazimierz.htm .

Film no. 2:

From the exhibition "The Jewish Ghetto," coming to you at the Museum of Family History sometime in 2010:

"The Ghettos of Dąbrowa Górnicza and Będzin" (10 mins, 51 secs):

A film in two parts, shot in the ghettos of Dąbrowa Górnicza and Będzin, probably at the beginning of the ghettos.

Dabrowa Górnicza is part of the Katowice conurbation. Jews settled in Dąbrowa Górnicza in the middle of the 19th century. There were 4,304 Jews living in Dąbrowa Górnicza according to the 1921 census (11% of the total population).

The German army captured Dąbrowa Górnicza on 3 September 1939. In the fall of 1940 several hundred young Jewish men were deported to slave labor camps in Germany. Several hundred more were deported in the course of 1941. At the end of that year a ghetto was established. On 5 May 1942, the first deportation took place in which 630 Jews were taken to Auschwitz and exterminated. In the second deportation, conducted on 12 August 1942, another few hundred Jews were sent to their death in Auschwitz. On 26 June 1943, the ghetto in Dąbrowa Górnicza was liquidated and all its inmates were transferred to the ghetto in Srodula (a suburb of Sosnowiec), the only ghetto still existing in Upper Silesia. It too was liquidated and all its inhabitants, including the Jews from Dąbrowa Górnicza, deported to Auschwitz and killed.

According to the 1921 census, there were 17,298 Jews in Będzin or 62.1 percent of its total population. By 1938, the number of Jews had increased to about 22,500.

Situated close to the border, Będzin was quickly captured by the Wehrmacht. On 7 September, persecution of the Jews began, with the instituting of economic sanctions. On 8 September, the Będzin synagogue was burned, and the first massacre of local Jews took place.

The ghetto was founded in May 1942 but deportations had started as early as October 1940. Despite cooperation with the occupiers as is shown in this film, several large deportations took place in 1942. The last major deportations took place in 1943: 5,000 were deported on 22 June 1943 and 8,000 around 13 August 1943. About 1,000 remaining Jews were deported in the subsequent months. A rising took place in August 1943 which was put down and the ghetto was eliminated.

This film is held in the Polish film archive in ul. Chelmska, Warsaw. -- From YouTube.

The film can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/fs-ghettos-dabrowa-gornicza-bedzin.htm .

Film no. 3:

Jolson sings in "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum!"

The film trailer.
"The picture, some persons may be glad to hear, has no 'Mammy' song. It is Mr. Jolson's best film and well it might be, for that clever director, Lewis Milestone, guided its destiny, and the supporting cast includes Frank Morgan, the beautiful Madge Evans, the pathetically comic Harry Langdon and that veteran of Keystone days, Chester Conklin. It is a combination of fun, melody and romance, with a dash of satire, all of which make for an ingratiating entertainment..."-- From the New York Times, Feb. 9, 1933.

Don't forget to visit the Museum's large Al Jolson exhibition titled "The Immortal Al Jolson" (and see and hear many more videos, not to mention more than forty sound clips) at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ajolson.htm .

Al Jolson Film Festival: "Show Business at War"

During the Second World War, many in show business did what they could to support the troops and the cause.

On May 21, 1943, a short film titled "Show Business at War" was released. It was part of an effort put forth my various studios to show the newsreel audience the progress of the Hollywood war effort.

Many Hollywood stars appear in this newsreel, one of whom is Al Jolson, who is seen and heard singing "Mammy" to the troops. Many others in show business appear in this film.

You can see the short film by clicking here.

Don't forget to visit the Museum's large Al Jolson exhibition titled "The Immortal Al Jolson" (and see and hear many more videos, not to mention more than forty sound clips) at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ajolson.htm .

This short film will be shown only at the Museum through March 21.

New to the MOFH Film Series' Al Jolson Film Festival: "Jolson Sings 'Kol Nidre'"

From now until March 7 you can see and hear Al Jolson sing "Kol Nidre."

This clip comes from the 1939 film "Hollywood Cavalcade" which features many stars such as Don Ameche and Alice Faye. The Jolson clip appears in the following scene: Don Ameche walks up to the front doors of the Criterion Theatre and asks a man standing outside, an employee of the theatre, if he can get a ticket. The man says it is standing room only, and if he doesn't mind standing, he can go in. What's playing? The 1927 film "The Jazz Singer" -- a "Vitaphone Singing Picture" starring Al Jolson as Jakie Rabinowitz, a cantor's son who wants to be in show business and not follow in his father's footsteps. Ameche walks in to the back of the theatre and hears Jolie begin "Kol Nidre." He looks up to the screen and sees and hears Jolie, replete in cantorial garb, complete the prayer.

The film clip can be seen at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/fs-ajff-03.htm .

MOFH Film Series: Now Showing, for Two Weeks Only

The current short films available within the Museum's Film Series will no longer be available for viewing beginning this coming Monday. Starting today, to be shown for two weeks, you may see the following:

"Immigration: An Instructional Film" (10:22).
Produced by the Encyclopedia Britannica Films, Inc. in 1946, this short film "reviews the history of immigration to the United States up to the restrictive law passed in 1924. A dramatized scene in a European steamship office is used to show the economic, political and religious motives for immigration. Contains scenes of Ellis Island and New York City in the early 20th century." This film plays only with Internet Explorer; however, a link is provided to another site that should enable you to play this film with other browsers.

See the Coney Island of the 1940s! (9:22).
For many decades the beach and boardwalk at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York was the place to be on a hot summer day. There were also side shows and amusement parks with plenty of thrill rides, not to mention Nathan's famous hot dogs. See a YouTube video of the Coney Island of the 1940s and get a sense of how our family members who lived in the New York metro area spent their time more than five decades ago.

The Al Jolson Film Festival - "Broadway Highlights: Intimate News of the Gay White Way" (10:39).
This short takes us down Manhattan's Broadway in 1935 with five stops where interesting events are occurring. First at Jack Dempsey's Restaurant, there is a testimonial dinner to famed band leader, the "King of Jazz" Paul Whiteman; second a stop at the Winter Garden Theatre where there is a casting call for Earl Carroll's Vanities; third, a stop at the Hollywood Restaurant where Sophie Tucker performs "Some of these Days"; fourth we get a peek at opening night of "Ceiling Zero," a 1935 play with Osgood Perkins and Margaret Perry, performed at the Music Box Theatre on 45th Street. The final stop on this tour is the NBC building at Radio City, where there is a rehearsal for "Shell Chateau," one of Al Jolson's radio programs, with the Victor Young Orchestra and starring boxer Max Baer. Two months after this broadcast, Max Baer would lose a famed fight to down-and-out James J. Braddock (The "Cinderella Man" bout.)

World Jewish Communities: "Buying a Religious Book in Mukacheve" (1:08).
In this 1933 film clip, you can see students leaving a yeshiva and one boy seeking to by a religious book.

You can find links to these films at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-films.htm .

MOFH Film Series: Last Day for Viewing

Tomorrow, Sunday, February 7th, will be the last day that you can see the following short films and clip as part of the new Museum of Family History's Film Series. After Sunday these films will be replace by new ones, which in turn, will only be available for viewing for two weeks (starting today):

"It's Your Story" - National Museum of American Jewish History (11:45).

The Museum, located in the heart of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (address: Independence Mall East, 55 North 5th Street), is scheduled to open sometime during the Fall of 2010. Here you may view a nice introductory short film produced by the Museum. The Museum's website can be found at www.nmajh.org. YouTube, fast download.

The Museum's Al Jolson Film Festival - "Hollywood's Famous Feet" (8:40).
[Please note that this film clip is large and may take two minutes or longer to fully download.]

With Al Jolson doing the narration, this short presents the story behind the famous footprints and signatures outside of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, and many of the top names in Hollywood are on hand to view the proceedings, including John Wayne, Ralph Staub, Donna Reed, Gene Autry, Edgar Bergen, Sid Grauman, Ken Murray and John Stahl... -- per IMDb. Festival film clips come courtesy of the International Al Jolson Society (IAJS).
IAJG website: www.jolson.org .

World Jewish Communities: "The Children of Mukacheve Sing 'Hatikvah'" (0:53).
In this pre-war film clip, you can hear a couple of hundred children of Mukacheve, Hungary sing the wonderful anthem "Hatikvah."

You can find links to these clips as well as links to future film series entries at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-films.htm .

MOFH New Film Series

As most of the Museum's fans already know, there is a great number of both audio and video clips on display within the Museum. One may, for instance, watch any of more than two dozen video clips--previews created from documetaries with a Jewish theme. The link is www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/screeningroom.htm.

There are also many, many sound clips that are also available for "your listening pleasure." You may access the lists of all the audio and video content found within the Museum by visiting www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/multimedia.htm.

The Museum of Family History, always wishing to add more interesting features and content, would like to announce the creation of its new "MFOH Film Series," which will present short films or clips shown nowhere else on the Museum's website. What is different about this Series--as opposed to other content on its site--is that these films will only be available for a short period of time, i.e. usually from one day to one week, and then it will no longer be available at the Museum for viewing.

The dates of each film showing will be stated on the Museum's Film Series page.
From Sunday, January 24 to Saturday, February 6th, you can see two short films (those who visit the Museum blog may have an earlier viewing of these two films beginning today).

The first two filma available for viewing are (the duration of the clip is indicated within the parentheses):

"It's Your Story" - National Museum of American Jewish History (11:45).
The Museum, located in the heart of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (address: Independence Mall East, 55 North 5th Street), is scheduled to open sometime during the Fall of 2010. Here you may view a nice introductory short film produced by the Museum. The Museum's website can be found at http://www.nmajh.org/.

The Al Jolson Film Festival - "Hollywood's Famous Feet" (8:40).
With Al Jolson doing the narration, this short presents the story behind the famous footprints and signatures outside of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, and many of the top names in Hollywood are on hand to view the proceedings, including John Wayne, Ralph Staub, Donna Reed, Gene Autry, Edgar Bergen, Sid Grauman, Ken Murray and John Stahl... -- per IMDb. Festival film clips come courtesy of the International Al Jolson Society (IAJS).
Website: http://www.jolson.org/. This clip is presented to you in an mp4 format, so hopefully you will be able to watch it. Please be patient and wait for it to load--it make take one minute or longer, depending on the speed of your Internet connection. More Jolson Festival clips will follow after February 6.

You can access both short films by using the links provided at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-films.htm. Future films will be included on this webpage in the near future.

The Jewish Side of Jolson

More on Al Jolson (Asa Yoelson).

There is much to be said about Jolson's Judaism. It was, in many ways, so much a part of his identity. Though he was never an observant Jew, he would assault--verbally or otherwise--anyone who made an anti-Semitic crack.

Jolson was, as his biographer Herb Goldman wrote, the first Jewish-American entertainer who did not hide his roots. There are many references to Yiddish and Jewish tradition in his films and radio shows.

Yiddish was a second language to him, of course. The greatest influence on his Jewishness was his father, Moshe Reuben Yoelson. Moshe was a rabbi, a cantor and a mohel.

It should also be noted that Jolson recorded the songs "Israel" and "Hatikvah" with Decca Records in May 1948 and donated all the royalties to the United Jewish Appeal.

Two days after recording the songs, he sent a master copy to Israel's new president, Chaim Weizmann (who at the time was visiting President Truman at the White House.) The story made the front page of "Variety."

Jolson also did radio shows for the United Jewish Appeal in 1947 and 1948 and paid for a two-page ad in "Variety," urging funds for Jews in Europe.

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It should be noted that an estimate of Al Jolson's estate, in 1950, was some four million dollars. That would be equivalent, in 2007 currency, of about $35 Million.
Al Jolson took to heart the essential Jewish mandate of tikun olam, perfecting the world. It is a belief rooted in Jewish liturgy and practice to leave this world a better place than when you entered it, and from the variety of causes helped by Jolson's wealth, I think he helped significantly in completing this task. Here is a listing of the charities which benefited from bequests in Jolson's will. Wherever possible, I have provided web links to sites maintained by those charities or successors. --according to the International Al Jolson Society

Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York
Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies of New York
Free Synagogue Child Adoption Committee
Hebrew National Orphan Home
Society of St. Vincent de Paul
Orphans Home and Asylum of Protestant Episcopal Church
Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews of New York
New York Association for the Blind
Palestine Light House
Hadassah
Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society
American Red Cross
Memorial Hospital
Actors Fund of America
Columbia University
New York University
City College of New York

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The "Immortal Al Jolson" exhibition can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ajolson.htm .

The International Al Jolson Society Presents

When I was just a couple years from becoming a bar mitzvah, I became enamored with the singing of the immortal Al Jolson. I used to tell everyone who'd listen that I watched the first Jolson bio pic "The Jolson Story" twenty-nine times on television. These were the days when "Million Dollar Movie" showed a film two or three times a day. After attending today's 13th annual Jolson festival on Long Island, New York (attended by more than 180 Jolson devotees), I don't think I was the only one.

Also there was a great Jolson sound alike named Tony Babino who did a wonderful Jolson. He regailed us with many a Jolson song.

I'd also like to remind those of you who haven't yet visited the "Immortal Al Jolson" exhibition at the Museum of Family History, to do so. There are nearly thirty web pages to this large online exhibition, which is replete with dozens of photos of Jolson, seventeen video clips and more than forty sound clips from all aspects of Jolson's personal and professional life. There's even a page entitled "The Jewish Side of Jolson" where you can hear Jolson sing "Hatikvah," "Kol Nidre," "Cantor on the Sabbath," and "Israel."

In gathering material for my Jolson exhibition, I first heard Jolson sing the aformentioned Jewish songs. Had I heard Jolson's version of "Kol Nidre" during those immediate years before I became a Bar Mitzvah, I wonder whether my Haftorah reading might have had a Jolson "lilt" to it...

"Cantor on the Sabbath" ("a chazend'l ofn shabbos"), sung in Yiddish by Jolson and mimed by Jolson portrayer Larry Parks, was originally to be part of the first Jolson bio pic "The Jolson Story," but the powers-that-be decided it was too ethnic and cut it from the film. And they say "the rest his history."

The Jolson exhibition can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ajolson.htm .
The Jolson society website can be found at http://www.jolson.org/ .

Multimedia Presentations at the Museum of Family History

One of the unique features of the virtual Museum of Family History is its multimedia aspect. Many sound and video clips can be found at the Museum which make a "day at the Museum" a most pleasant experience. Here is a sampling of what can be found within the Museum that contain audio and/or video:

• Great Artists Series: "The Immortal Al Jolson" is an exhibition that could only have been created with the cooperation of the International Al Jolson Society, which has over one thousand members.
  Within this some thirty-page exhibition, you will find seventeen video clips and more than forty sound clips of Jolson, some where he's singing, others where he's being interviewed. You will also find video clips from his films, from newsreels, and even from a home movie (set to music, of course).
  You can also hear sound clips from a number of Jolson's old radio shows--even guest star Fannie Brice appears, singing "My Man." There is one webpage, entitled "The Jewish Side of Jolson," where you can hear Jolson sing four songs including "Hatikvah," "Kol Nidre" (beautiful) and "Chazzan Oyfn Shabbas" (in English, "Cantor on the Sabbath").
  You can also read about Jolson's personal (as well as his professional) life. This exhibition is highly recommended.
  www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ajolson.htm
  The website of the International Al Jolson Society can be found at http://www.jolson.org/ .
  
  
• Also another exhibition found within the Museum's Great Artists Series is "The Great Richard Tucker," who many of us know as a fabulous tenor, but did you know he was also a Cantor too? Within this exhibition you can read about Tucker's family life as well as hear him sing two arias from "Tosca", the aria "Vesti la giubba" from "I, Pagliacci" and "Nessun Dorma" from "Turandot."
  www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/rtucker.htm
  
  
• Screening Room: The Jewish documentary most often thematically deals with the many aspects, events and experiences of Jewish life that exists or existed within the Diaspora. These films attempt to honor and preserve these significant events that have become indelibly etched within the collective Jewish consciousness. It is for this reason that the Museum has created the "Screening Room." The Museum is honored to be able to share with you short previews of twenty such films, in the hope that you will want to see the film in its entirety somewhere, and when you do, consider what the filmmaker is trying to say; why he or she felt it was so important to make their film.
  Lastly, the Museum urges you to support the Jewish documentarian and the work they do in whatever way you can.
  www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/screeningroom.htm
  
  
• World War II and the Holocaust: If you have the stomach for it, you can watch a one-hour film produced by the U.S. Department of Defense as the U.S. Army liberated a number of camps at the end of the War. The camps include Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Leipzig, Penig (a subcamp of Buchenwald), Ohrdruf (another subcamp of Buchenwald), Ahlen, Arnstadt, Nordhausen; Breendonck (Belgium) and Mauthausen (Austria). Also included are scenes from Hadamar, the psychiatric hospital in Germany that was used by the Nazis to perform mass sterilizations and mass murder of 'undesirable' members of Nazi society, specifically the physically and mentally handicapped.
  www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/cc/ccamps-us.htm
  
  
• "Seeking Justice! The Nuremberg Trials": A film of one hour and a quarter about the Nuremberg trials.
  www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-rm012a.htm
  
  
• There are many more video and sound clips that can be found within the virtual realm of the Museum of Family History. Just visit the Museum's Multimedia page which contains links to separate pages that list its audio and video collection.
  www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/multimedia.htm

You should be forewarned that, depending on the media player(s) you have on your computer, you may or may not be able to play some of the videos. Also depending on your Internet connection, your download time may be short or long. The Museum, of course, regrets any incovenience or dissapointment that this may cause you.