Lionel Ziprin
RABBI ABULAFIA'S BOXED SET
A KCRW DOCUMENTARYPRODUCED BY JON KALISH
Airs during the broadcast/webcast of Philosophers, Fiddlers and Fools, Fri., Dec. 23, noon to 3 pm, KCRW General Manager Ruth Seymour's annual Chanukah tribute to Yiddish.
Standalone broadcast/webcast:
Wednesday, December 28 from 7 to 7:30pm – Rabbi Abulafia’s Boxed Set, a KCRW documentary by Jon Kalish. For more than two years in the 1950's, avant-garde ethno-musicologist Harry Smith recorded a Lower East Side Rabbi's cantorial music, folk songs and Yiddish story-telling. The Rabbi's eccentric grandson is hoping to re-release a condensed version of this material. It's a holy mission for him. (Originally airs Dec. 23 during Philosophers, Fiddlers and Fools.)
As Jews around the world celebrate the miracle of Chanukah, KCRW presents the story of a Lower East Side miracle of sorts. In the new half-hour radio documentary Rabbi Abulafia's Boxed Set, listeners are introduced to 81-year-old Lionel Ziprin, a Lower East Side legend whos on a mission to disseminate the religious recordings his grandfather made a half-century ago with the crazed ethnomusicologist Harry Smith.
Santa Monica-based public radio station KCRW commissioned veteran New York City public radio reporter Jon Kalish to produce the documentary. Kalish has covered the Orthodox Jewish world for NPR and other news organizations for 22 years. He was producer-in-residence at KCRW in 2000 and has produced original documentaries on two other New York characters -- Jimmy Breslin and Spalding Gray -- for the station.
"To my ear, Ziprin sounds uncannily like the late Lenny Bruce. But, unlike the comedian, Ziprin hangs out at a Lower East Side yeshiva and his life has been a lot wilder," said Kalish, who shares a Manhattan loft with his painter wife and two Siamese cats. "Of the hundreds of radio stories I have done in the last 30 years, this is hands down my all-time favorite."
Kalish first met Ziprin in 1998 when one of the reporter's elderly Yippie friends introduced him to the man. Kalish did a short radio piece and a newspaper article about Ziprin's rescue of the 15-LP's his grandfather, Rabbi Nuftali Zvi Margolies Abulafia, recorded with the eccentric Harry Smith. Kalish knew the story would make a compelling radio documentary.
Rabbi Abulafia's Boxed Set, a half-hour documentary on public radio station KCRW 89.9 FM and KCRW.com, can be heard as part of the radio broadcast and live Internet simulcast of the station's 27th annual tribute to Yiddish, Philosophers, Fiddlers and Fools hosted by General Manager, Ruth Seymour on Friday, December 23rd, between noon and 3 pm (Pacific time), and as a standalone broadcast, on air and online, Wednesday, December 28th from 7 to 7:30 pm (PT).
The program will be available on CD for $18; contact jonkalish@earthlink.net.
[Listen]
A KCRW documentary by Jon Kalish. For more than two years in the 1950's, avant-garde ethno-musicologist Harry Smith recorded a Lower East Side Rabbi's cantorial music, folk songs and Yiddish story-telling. The Rabbi's eccentric grandson is hoping to re-release a condensed version of this material. It's a holy mission for him.