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When Barry Serota’s life suddenly ended because of a heart attack in November 2009, the world of recorded Jewish music lost one of its most respected professionals.
Barry Serota, a practicing attorney and executive director of the Institute for Jewish Sound Recording, died suddenly November 16, 2009 on a plane flight between New York and Madrid on the way to Israel.
During the 1960s and 1970s the State of Israel produced Vistas of Israel, a series of original half-hour broadcasts which were aired on local radio stations throughout the USA. The programs featured popular Israeli performers of the day, topical discussions, and interviews with prominent government officials and academics.
The Judaica Sound Archives has been fortunate enough to acquire an extensive collection of these Vistas of Israel radio broadcasts. Over 400 of these recorded programs will eventually be available to you on this website.
When I learned that Marlene Englander (Jack Saul’s daughter) and her husband Jon would be visiting us on Feb. 28, 2011 I couldn’t have been more excited. Marlene had been very helpful to the Recorded Sound Archives in negotiating the details of the delivery of two large truckloads of audio recordings from her mother’s home in Cleveland to FAU Libraries.
As a matter of fact, it was this enormous gift of recordings from the Saul family that inspired FAU Libraries to create the Recorded Sound Archives (RSA). Over the past six years the Judaica Sound Archives has been gaining in prominence and size. So you can imagine the excitement when we started unpacking the Saul Collection and found hundreds of gems that were new the JSA collection. Since Jack Saul had a wonderful collection of early Victor recordings we were able to put together collections of music by such Jewish entertainment super-stars as Al Jolson, Jascha Heifetz, Efrem Zimbalist and Alma Gluck.
The Judaica Sound Archives at FAU Libraries joins the rest of the worldwide Jewish community in mourning the death of Debbie Friedman.
Friedman, a beloved Jewish composer and performer, died on January 9th at the age of 59. Her singable, folk-inspired music combined lyrics in Hebrew and English to make Jewish prayer uniquely accessible. She was deeply committed to Jewish spiritual values and bringing them to us in ways we had never heard before.
What is a renaissance man? According to the dictionary a renaissance man is someone who is knowledgeable, educated, and proficient in a wide range of fields. Al Drucker was such a man.
A graduate of Adelphi University, he pursued a career in engineering. He eventually got a job with Grumman where he helped design the guidance system for the lunar lander.
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