Radio And The Jews

RADIO AND THE JEWS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF HOW RADIO INFLUENCED AMERICA'S IMAGE OF JEWS, 1920s-1950s by David S. Siegel and Susan Siegel From stereotypes to role models, the first comprehensive look at how Jews were portrayed on radio from the 1920s to the 1950s. -- From struggling immigrants to prominent men and women who were recognized for their significant contributions in their chosen fields. -- From comedic characters who made a nation laugh to more serious ones who brought comfort and reassurance to generations of listeners. Travel back in time as Radio and the Jews examines over 100 programs that featured Jewish themes and/or characters. The very first book that takes an in-depth look at the Jewish image across all program genres. Journal of Radio & Audio Media, Vol 16, #2, November, 2009 The Siegels have written a serious book and have made a respectable but occasionally flawed attempt at presenting their story in a work that will be of interest not only to professional radio historians but to serious readers interested in broadcasting or Jewish history. American Jewish History, Vol 94, #1-2, March-June 2008 The book explores the way popular radio programs addresssed themes that have long been of interest to scholars of American Jewish history, including Jewish stereotypes, assimilation, antisemitism, and American Jewish response to Nazi Germany. . . Radio and the Jews is filled with useful background material about the actors, writers, sponsors, and networks responsible for the many programs, famous and obscure, that included Jewish representations. Jewish Book World The Siegels put their encyclopedic knowledge of the Golden Age of Radio to good use. Their study brings together virtually every significant mention of Jews in popular radio programs from 1920 to 1960. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of how popular culture both reflected and shaped public perceptions of who and what Jews were, at once contributing to and battling anti-Semitism and intolerance. . . A valuable work for the vast majority of us who have no direct memory of the Golden Age of Radio.

Examines the culture of Yiddish radio in the United States during radio's golden age.

Carol Miller is indisputably America’s premiere female rock ’n’ roll disc jockey, as her well-deserved induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame proves. In her illuminating, fascinating, sometimes heartbreaking memoir, Up All Night, the legendary “Nightbird” tells the story of her colorful career—her rise to success in a male-dominated music industry; her close and personal dealings with rock royalty like Bruce Springsteen (whose music she first introduced to New York radio), Sir Paul McCartney, and Steven Tyler (whom she dated)—and details openly and honestly her battle against breast cancer for the very first time.

In The Jewish Hour, author Michael Mandel delves into the pages of a Yiddish newspaper, the Kanader Nayes, to learn about his late father's Yiddish radio show and the world of the Jewish immigrants who lived in Toronto from the 1930s through the 1950s. Adds significantly to our knowledge of Toronto's Jewish history. Yiddish song lyrics included.

From the host of NPR affiliate’s Forum with Michael Krasny, a compendium of Jewish jokes that packs the punches with hilarious riff after riff and also offers a window into Jewish culture. Michael Krasny has been telling Jewish jokes since his bar mitzvah, and it’s been said that he knows more of them than anyone on the planet. He certainly states his case in this wise, enlightening, and hilarious book that not only collects the best of Jewish humor passed down from generation to generation, but explains the cultural expressions and anxieties behind the laughs. "What’s Jewish Alzheimer’s?" "You forget everything but the grudges." "You must be so proud. Your daughter is the President of the United States!" "Yes. But her brother is a doctor!" "Isn’t Jewish humor masochistic?" "No. And if I hear that one more time I am going to kill myself." With his background as a scholar and public-radio host, Krasny delves deeply into the themes, topics, and form of Jewish humor: chauvinism undercut by irony and self-mockery, the fear of losing cultural identity through assimilation, the importance of vocal inflection in joke-telling, and calls to communal memory, including the use of Yiddish. Borrowing from traditional humor and such Jewish comedy legends as Jackie Mason, Mel Brooks, and Joan Rivers, Larry David, Sarah Silverman, Jerry Seinfeld and Amy Schumer, Let There Be Laughter is an absolute pleasure for the chosen and goyim alike.

In examining one of the defining events of the twentieth century, Doris L. Bergen situates the Holocaust in its historical, political, social, cultural, and military contexts. Unlike many other treatments of the Holocaust, the revised, second edition of War and Genocide discusses not only the persecution of the Jews, but also other segments of society victimized by the Nazis: gypsies, homosexuals, Poles, Soviet POWs, the handicapped, and other groups deemed undesirable. In clear and eloquent prose, Bergen explores the two interconnected goals that drove the Nazi German program of conquest and genocide—purification of the so-called Aryan race and expansion of its living space—and discusses how these goals affected the course of World War II. Including first hand accounts from perpetrators, victims, and eyewitnesses, the book is immediate, human, and eminently readable.

This three-volume work tells the story of how Jewish Americans overcame anti-Semitism, anti-immigrant biases, and poverty to shape American film, television, music, sports, literature, food, and humor.