THE RADIO SHOW THAT MEANS HANUKKAH TO L.A. LISTENERS.Byline: Sandra Barrera Music Writer Ruth Seymour remembers the first time she went on the air with the Hanukkah special ``Philosophers, Fiddlers and Fools.'' The year was 1979, and her full-fledged salute to the then-vanishing culture of Eastern European Jews had been on the air at KCRW-FM (89.9) - then a tiny outlet operating out of a two-room studio on the playground of a junior high school - for the duration of three hours. She says the switchboard had never been so dark. ``I was convinced I had killed,'' Seymour says with a big laugh, because just then, she recalls, the phone started ringing off the hook. And it kept on ringing even as the stunned general manager was locking up the place several hours later. Today the show has become a part of the holiday landscape at the station, now a national powerhouse based out of Santa Monica College Santa Monica College was first opened in 1929 as Santa Monica Junior College. Current enrollment is 32,000 students in more than 90 fields of study. The college also has one of the largest international student populations of any community college in the US, with approximately and with an audience of half a million. In fact, before lighting menorahs on Friday night, the first night of Hanukkah, many of those people will be tuning in tuning in, v process in which a therapeutic touch practitioner centers himself or herself so as to be aligned with or “in tune” with a healing energy “frequency,” so that the patient may choose to join the practitioner (tune to Seymour's 25th-anniversary salute to all things Yiddish. It's a tradition Jews and non-Jews alike have come to expect and ask for. ``Around the beginning of December they call and say, 'When is she doing her Hanukkah show?' And the poor volunteers answering the phone, who may have worked there all of three days, are trying to figure out who 'she' is, and what the Hanukkah show is because it has a title,'' Seymour says. With the exception of new material, little about the program - a mix of music and storytelling - has changed since its inception. It opens with folk music folk music: see folk song. folk music Music held to be typical of a nation or ethnic group, known to all segments of its society, and preserved usually by oral tradition. Knowledge of the history and development of folk music is largely conjectural. , followed by a Holocaust memorial, a short story and a hit parade of Yiddish popular culture. For the story segment, this year Seymour has selected ``Androgynous'' by the late Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer Noun 1. Isaac Bashevis Singer - United States writer (born in Poland) of Yiddish stories and novels (1904-1991) Singer . The gender-bending tale about a widowed rabbi who marries a hermaphrodite hermaphrodite (hərmăf`rədīt'), animal or plant that normally possesses both male and female reproductive systems, producing both eggs and sperm. , with whom he lives happily ever after The term happily ever after is used in association with many works of children’s fiction and romantic fiction. It describes a happy ending, often a cliché in which all the good characters have emerged victorious and all the evil characters have been punished. , had previously been available only in Hebrew until Sept. 29, when an English translation of the story appeared in the New Yorker. ``It's a typical Singer story in many ways,'' says Seymour, herself, a celebrated torchbearer torch·bear·er n. 1. One that carries a torch. 2. One, such as the leader of a government, who imparts knowledge, truth, or inspiration to others. Noun 1. of Yiddish - in 1999, she was recognized for her ``service to Yiddish language and culture'' by the Workmen's Circle. Having studied with the great Yiddish scholar Max Weinreich as a 16-year-old girl in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , Seymour carries on those teachings with the broadcast of stories like Singer's, as read by actor Theodore Bikel. ``It illustrates a particular attitude toward God, toward life and, I must say, in this particular story, about sex,'' Seymour says with another big laugh. ``It reflects an aspect of Judaism that isn't terribly well understood - and that is a sense about God, which is quite interesting. ``The narrator NARRATOR. A pleader who draws narrs serviens narrator, a sergeant at law. Fleta, 1. 2, c. 37. Obsolete. is saying to God ... 'Why do I, a speck of dust, have to bow down before you? It's no great accomplishment if you're the Almighty,' '' she continues. ``So I think it's a mixture of comedy and seriousness - and certainly of great faith. And a belief, I think, in erudition er·u·di·tion n. Deep, extensive learning. See Synonyms at knowledge. Erudition of editors—Hare. Noun 1. and scholarship.'' Sandra Barrera, (818) 713-3728 sandra.barrera(at)dailynews.com PHILOSOPHERS, FIDDLERS AND FOOLS Where: KCRW-FM (89.9) or www.kcrw.com. When: Noon to 3 p.m. Friday. Description: A three-hour radio Hanukkah special that celebrates Yiddish language and culture through music and storytelling. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: ``It's a mixture of comedy and seriousness - and certainly of great faith,'' says ``Philosophers, Fiddlers and Fools'' host Ruth Seymour. |
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