Sidor belarsky biography of albert
Harris, Albert, 1963
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File — Box: Box I-1:18, Box: I-1:18, Folder: 548
Scope and Contents
This subseries consists of more than 2100 folders of correspondence containing letters, telegrams, contracts, payment agreements, membership applications, awards, newspaper clippings, and other materials relating to the professional lives and working conditions of celebrated actors, producers, directors, and playwrights, who became household names during the golden age of Yiddish theater in America. The correspondence is mostly from 1927-1945, but with materials dating from 1908 until 1986. Skip to main content Collection Identifier: RG 546 Correspondence with individuals including Salo Baron, Bernard Baruch, Sidor Belarsky, Ber Borochov, Judah Leob (Leib) Cahan, Jacob de Haas, Mendl Elkin, Ben Zion Goldberg, Alexander Harkavy, Ephim Jeshurin, Yudel Mark, Kalman Marmor, Henry Morgenthau, Melech Ravitch, Zalman Reisen, Edward Sapir, Max Weinreich, Uriel Weinreich, Yehoash. Correspondence with organizations. Family correspondence. Letters from former students. Biographical materials, such as curriculum vitae, autobiographical notes, I.D. cards, letters of recommendation. Financial records. Clippings of Joffe's publications, of articles about him. Reports, minutes, plans, memoranda and correspondence relating to the Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language. Materials relating to the YIVO Institute. Notes of Executive Committee meetings. Notes on Board of Directors meetings. Materials of the Research and Training Division. Materials on YIVO Annual Conferences. Materials on the YIVO in Vilna. Materials relating to Joffe's courses and lectures: notes on Yiddish courses, Yiddish composition, phonetics, morphology, etymology. Materials relating to the following topics: dictionaries; Russian literature and linguistics; Old-Yiddish language and literature; the Bove-bukh by Elias Levita (Elia Bachur). Materials relating to music, musicians, Yiddish songs, music institutions, recordings. Folklore materials: folksongs, proverbs, anecdotes. Dates: 1893 - 1966 Found in: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research Collection Identifier: RG 421 Correspondence with individuals including Sidor Belarsky, Menahem Boraisha, Simon Dubnow, Aaron Glanz-Leieles, Jacob Glatstein, Chaim Grade, David Hofstein, H. Leivick, Jacob Lestschinsky, Abr Sidor Belarsky Isidor Livshitz Kryzhopil, Ukraine Sidor Belarsky, born Isidor Livshitz (December 27, 1898 – June 7, 1975), was an internationally recognized American opera singer, educator and interpreter of Judaic folk songs, Chassidic Nigunim and Judaic cantorial music Sidor Belarsky was born to a Jewish family in Kryzhopil, Ukraine. He emigrated with his wife Clarunia and daughter Isabel to the United States in February 1930 or 1931. Initially, his family was automatically detained at Ellis Island since the United States did not maintain diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union at that time. Belarsky first pursued musical studies at the Odessa Conservatory and in Berlin. He later graduated from the State Conservatory at Leningrad in 1929 and soon emerged as a soloist with the Kirov Opera company as well as a leading basso with the Leningrad State Opera Company. After arriving in the United States in 1930 while on a concert tour, he was invited by Franklin S. Harris to join the faculty at Brigham Young University, where taught vocal music from 1930-1933. He was also on the faculty at the University of Utah. He soon established residency in Los Angeles from 1932-1936 where he concertized with the Los Angeles Symphony at the Hollywood Bowl in productions of Boris Godunov and Eugene Onegin. While in Los Angeles he also founded the American Opera Company. They may not have called it the American Dream but for centuries people have gone to America in search of freer, happier, and richer lives. But is today’s American Dream a mythical concept or still a reality? Isabel Belarsky’s tiny Brooklyn apartment fills with the sound of her father’s voice. Sidor Belarsky sings an Aria in Russian and 90-year-old Isabel, her lips painted an elegant red, sways gently to the song coming from her stereo. Isabel speaks with pride about her father’s talent and his success as an opera singer: Albert Einstein was such a fan she says that he invited Sidor to accompany him on his speaking engagements and would ask him to sing to the audience. How the Belarskys came to be in America is an extraordinary tale that Isabel loves to tell. "It was the Mormons!" she says, laughing. "They couldn’t be more different from us Jews!" It was the offer of a six-month job by a Mormon college president, who had seen Sidor singing in Leningrad, that enabled the Belarskys to escape from Stalin’s Russia in 1930. "Our dream was being in America," Isabel says. "They loved it. My mother could never think of Russia, it was her enemy and my father, he made such a wonderful career here." National psyche Like generations of immigrants before them, the Belarskys came to America in search of freedom – to them the American Dream meant liberty. But Isabel says it promised even more. "The Dream is to work, to have a home, to get ahead, you can start as a janitor and become the owner of the building." The American Dream is not written into the constitution but it is so ingrained in the national psyche that it might as well be. Many point to the second sentence in the Declaration of Independence – the "certain
Actors and community leaders for whom there are folders include: Julius Adler, Leon Arkin (labor official), Rose Asch Simpson (labor), Judith Abarbanel, Sidor Belarsky, Ben Bonus, Max Bozyk, Daniel Charney, Ossip Dymow, Sam Gertler (playwright), Jacob Jacobs, Hymie Jacobson, Irving Jacobson, Jacob Kalich and Molly Picon (including a 1946 telegram sent by Picon from Poland describing performances to benefit Holocaust survivors), Jennie Kessler, Sarah Kindman, Max Kletter, Harry Lang (labor), Leon Liebgold, Misha Levitsky (pianist), Fiorello LaGuardia (about his participation in wartime bond drive), Meyer Melman, Bessie Mogulesko, Fraidele and Moishe Oysher, Ludwig Satz, Maurice Schwartz, Abraham Schomer, Abraham Teitelbaum (playwright), and Annie Thomashefsky.
There is also a great deal of correspondence with various unions and with theaters across the country and Canada, including the Arch Street Theater, the Lincoln Theater and the Gibson/Girard Yiddish Folks Theatre in Philadelphia, Glikman’s Palace Theater and Douglas Park Theatre in Chicago, the Capitol Theater in Los Angeles, the Standard Theater and Metropolitan Theater in Toronto, and numerous theaters in New York, including the Public Theater, the Clinton Theater, the Yiddish Art Theater, the Hopkinson Theater and the Brighton Beach Theater in Brooklyn, and the Belarsky, Sidor
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Found in 4 Collections and/or Records:
Judah Achilles Joffe Papers
Papers of Daniel Charney
Sidor Belarsky
Born
(1898-12-27)December 27, 1898Died 7 June 1975(1975-06-07) (aged 76) Nationality Ukrainian Alma mater Petersburg State Conservatory Occupation Opera singer (basso) Spouse(s) Clarunia
(Oct. 17, 1900-Feb. 21, 1980) Children Isabel Biography
What is today’s American Dream?
Isabelle Isabel Belarsky’s family escaped to America from Stalin’s Russia.