It is possible to make a contribution in U.S. dollars directly to YIVO. We are setting up a restricted account for donations designated for work on the Ruth Rubin materials. There will soon be a dedicated page on YIVO’s website for this purpose. In the meantime, you can send your check, made payable to YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, to

Digital Ruth
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
15 West 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
Attention: Lorin Sklamberg

Let me know if you have further questions.

Thanks!

Lorin

Your mother did indeed record for Ruth Rubin – more than just the title you mention (A shadkhn darf men kenen zayn), which, btw, is available from Smithsonian Folkways:

http://www.folkways.si.edu/jewish-life-the-old-country/judaica/music/album/smithsonian

We are currently in the process of digitizing Ruth Rubin’s field recordings. Your mom also recorded (from a cursory look through the catalog) Vekurev pezureynu, Kegn gold fun zun (a duet with Ruth), Sov, sov, sevivon, Mother I long to be married, Veselyo kolkhoznikam, Gdye ti zamyordisthka and Now once I was courted.

There is also a recording of Yetst gey ikh mir shpatsirn by David Drucker – any relation?

You could come in and listen to these – please contact me at lsklamberg@yivo.cjh.org to set up an appointment.

I’d also, of course, be interested in whatever private recordings you have of your mother for our collection.

Looking forward…

Lorin

My name is Emily Collins. I very recently saw you perform at Adrienne Cooper’s tribute concert and then in Red Hook with the Klezmatics a few Sundays ago. (You might remember me at the evening performance in Red Hook with my very reluctant 9-year old grandson who stood by the back door and wouldn’t come in for half of the concert while I was sitting second row pew with the other boy.)
My friend Bonnie Stein told me that you are the sound archivist at YIVO and to contact you. My mother’s name was Esther Drucker and she was a Yiddish singer and a close friend of Ruth Rubin’s. They worked together on their music when we all lived in Sunnyside Queens during the 1940S. My mother performed as a soloist playing the guitar, and sang folk music in many languages. She was, briefly, the “SInging Lady” on WNYC during the 1940s. I have practice tapes (reel to reel and cassette) but from when she was older. I once encountered what I think was a “remaindered” Folkways International (?) LP record on which she was singing the very last cut (in Yiddish). I was young and didn’t think to buy it! Never saw it again and couldn’t locate it through the internet. I wonder if you could help me to at least find that recording and possibly any other. Her name is Esther Milgram Drucker, but I’m pretty sure she would be found as Esther Drucker.

I live in Park Slope Brooklyn and can come to YIVO easily.

If you go to http://www.archive.org/details/nybc201092, you can download Volume 4 for free, then go to pdf page 619 (actual book page 3641), and if you can read Yiddish, you can learn more about her.

I am currently translating into Yiddish the six (actually seven) volumes of the Lexicon, having completed more than seven hundred of the more than twenty-eight hundred biographies included within these volumes.

Regards,
Steve Lasky
http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com
steve@museumoffamilyhistory.com