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Podcast: North Star with Ellin Bessner
Episode: Saul Rubinek talks about returning to his mother tongue of Yiddish for a new role
Description: Actor Saul Rubinek was born in a displaced person’s camp in Germany right after the Second World War. His Polish parents survived the Holocaust thanks to Christian farmers who hid them from the Nazis. After the family moved to Canada in 1949, Rubinek’s father Israel used to blame Hitler for curtailing his burgeoning career in Yiddish theatre. That’s why it meant so much to his son, now 74, to play the role of a Holocaust-era rabbi in the new movie Shttl, reciting his lines completely in Yiddish, his mamaloshen.
Acting in a fully Yiddish film was a first...