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. Read More About This…

Cleveland weather provides a rare opportunity for Floridians to shovel snow

Nathan Tinanoff, Ben Roth and Alethea Perez left South Florida to complete the final packing of the Jack Saul  recordings that will find a home at FAU’s Wimberly Library. They arrived in Cleveland to find a snow-covered landscape and frigid temperatures. How did the Floridians handle the weather? Read More About This…

• December 29, 2009:  The large donation of recordings to FAU Libraries from Jack Saul’s private collection sparked interest in the Judaica Sound Archives and resulted in the following  newspaper article by Lona O’Connor, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

The Judaica Sound Archive is accustomed to receiving large donations of old recordings. But its latest bequest — 10,000 records — arrived in an 18-wheel trailer truck.

The 7-year-old musical archive, part of Florida Atlantic University’s library, has a lot of cataloging to do in the next few months, because another 18-wheeler will arrive as soon as the snow melts . It will carry at least twice as many recordings — all from the late Jack Saul, a Cleveland furniture store owner whose collection may have amounted to as many as 300,000 recordings at its peak. Read More About This…

Ben Roth-Aroni looking for treasures in a hidden closet

After his visit to Cleveland in October 2009 to look at the additional recordings that Jack Saul’s family had discovered in the furniture store and in a “hidden closet” in the family’s home, Nathan Tinanoff, director of the JSA at FAU Libraries,  said, “I could see right away that this was going to be a big job.” Last week he returned with Ben Roth and Alethea Perez, two JSA employees who offered to help pack the rest of the phonograph recordings that were earmarked for Florida Atlantic University Libraries in Boca Raton, FL. Read More About This…

You might be able to imagine the excitement that is generated at the Judaica Sound Archives whenever we uncover a genuine piece of history. Today I will share with you three 78 rpm albums from the Jack Saul Collection which have sitirred up some nostalgia here at the JSA.

(1)  Fanny Brice starred in the Ziegfeld Follies in the 1920s and 1930s. A pioneer female comic, she was one of the most popular Jewish entertainers of her day. And her fame became even greater when Barbra Streisand played the starring role in Brice’s life story, “Funny Girl” (1968). From 1938 until her death in 1951 Brice had an incredibly successful radio show based on just one character, Baby Snooks, a precocious, bratty toddler. This album of three double-sided 78 rpm recordings was produced in 1949 on the Capitol Records label. Read More About This…