Joseph rumshinsky biography

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Joseph Rumshinsky
 

Joseph Rumshinsky was born on 15 January 1881 [deceased on 6 February 1956] in Vilna [Vilnius], Lithuania. His father, Moyshe, was a fur hat maker. His uncle was a well-known preacher, Khayim Rumshisker. His mother, Tslove, was knowledgeable in the songs of Elyokem Tsunzer. On the basis of a conversation with Rumshinsky, Zalmen Zylbercweig portrays his home this way: "The work harmonized with singing. Shears and needles moved to the beat of a melody, and the melody was not always cheerful, merry. Often he expressed sorrow and concern for his livelihood, but a melody has always been heard. His father, R' Moshe, worked with his five to six companions and accompanied his labor-oriented movements with melodies. A cheerful, poor gentleman, R' Moshe always used to speak in a musical tone, in terms of a recitative. When the scissors used to be lost, if he was looking for the thimble, if he had to hand over a piece of clothing, he did not just say it out loud, but he sang it out."

In the story of his life, "Klangen fun may lebn (Sounds From My Life)," Rumshinsky writes of his

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Summer Stock Part Four: Joseph Rumshinsky

Uptown–Downtown

Like most artists in the American Yiddish theater, the “big four” all had aspirations toward bigger and better things. It’s true, I think, that the Yiddish theater did provide a viable outlet for artistic expression, but if Broadway, Hollywood or Carnegie Hall came knocking on the door, you answered. Some artists moved freely between different musical worlds. Others who found greener pastures never looked back. One of the things that makes Joseph Rumshinsky—who was once referred to as “crazy Wagner”—different is that he had those aspirations not so much for himself, but for Yiddish theater as a whole. More than any of his colleagues in the big four, Rumshinsky sought to transform the American Yiddish theater into something more—in New York terms—uptown. Which is to say: Rumshinsky didn't want to move on from the Yiddish theater, he wanted to take it with him. 

Born in Vilna, Joseph Rumshinsky displayed musical inclinations at an early age, even earning the nickname “note-devourer” (that’s notn-freser in Yiddish). Later, he became a choir boy/choral assistant (m’shorer) and toured throughout the Pale of Settlement. It was on one such tour that the young Joseph first encountered Yiddish theater through the famous Kam