H eadlines
Music Continued from Page 1
vaudeville acts, among others,
from the United States, the
former Soviet Union and Israel,
among others.

“Faculty at Penn regularly
bring their students to learn
about the Freedman archive,”
the website description reads.

The university labeled the
Freedmans’ six-decade effort
to build the collection “a labor
of love.”
And that label could not
have been more on point.

Robert Freedman, now 92
but still a savvy husband, gave
most of the credit to his wife,
Molly Freedman. He said she
motivated him to start buying
the old recordings on work
trips to different towns.

The Yiddish music reminded
her of her childhood, and she
wanted to preserve it.

At some point during each
trip, Robert Freedman, who
worked as a lawyer, would stop
in an old record store in the
downtown area. Eventually,
the Freedmans started making
these visits together during
their vacations.

“No matter where I traveled,
instead of taking a lunch hour,
I would walk downtown, find a
record store,” Freedman said.

“I had a lot of business in
New York. Michigan. Almost
any town you can name,” he
continued. “On vacations when we
traveled, South America.

Argentina was a real treasure
trove. They have a big Jewish
community. France. Including
Sephardic records. Amsterdam,
I was amazed, had the largest
Jewish record store in Europe,”
he continued. “Would you
believe that I found a couple of
Yiddish records in the Vatican?
I bought two records there.”
But Robert Freedman
further explained that to
truly understand why this
became the couple’s passion,
you have to understand their
background. Robert Freedman and
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM A program from the Robert and Molly Freedman Jewish Sound Archive
Courtesy of Robert Freedman
Molly Freedman did not
grow up together; he came
from Upper Darby, she from
West Philadelphia. But they
nonetheless came of age in a
similar Jewish culture.

Their families were secular,
cultural Jews who sent their
kids to afternoon schools
that taught students how to
read and write in Yiddish, as
well as summer camps where
they played and sang Yiddish
music. Robert Freedman also
has memories of singalongs in
his parents’ “tiny Upper Darby
living room,” as he described it,
in which relatives and friends
would “sing all night.”
The Freedmans came from
an Old World culture, and they
were set up in an Old World
kind of way, too.

His mother and her aunt
ran a beauty parlor together,
and with Robert Freedman
a young lawyer and Molly a
22-year-old beauty, they saw
them as a natural fit. So her
aunt, Sophie Fireman, invited
Robert Freedman and his
parents to a dinner party at her
house. When they arrived, there
was no party. Just a conversa-
tion between Robert Freedman
and Molly’s uncle at the
basement bar.

Later, Molly walked in with
her parents and her father
addressed Robert Freedman’s
mother by her maiden name.

They had grown up in neigh-
boring shtetls in Ukraine.

Six weeks later, the couple
was engaged. Though he may
not have had a choice in the
matter, Robert Freedman
agreed that his wife-to-be was
“gorgeous,” he said.

But his father may have
liked her even more.

“‘She understands Yiddish,
she reads Yiddish, she writes
Yiddish, and with it all,
she’s good-looking,’” Robert
Freedman recalled, quoting his
old man.

After marrying and having
two sons, Albert and David,
Molly Freedman asked her
husband a question one day.

“I miss the music,” she
said. “Why don’t you look
for records, and bring them
home?” That’s when the collecting
started. David Freedman, now 59,
remembers his father playing
the music in their living
room. He also recalls his
father getting up on Sunday
mornings to listen to the “The
Barry Reisman Show.”
“It was the only place in
Philadelphia that was on the
radio with Yiddish music back
in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s,”
David Freedman said.

What started as a fun
nostalgic activity grew into
something more over time.

Robert Freedman began
cataloging the records and
songs into a computer database.

When the Freedmans lived
in an apartment complex in
Rittenhouse Square, word
got out about the collection,
JEWISH EXPONENT
and they started receiving
donations. “The collection got so large
that we had to buy another
apartment, a studio apartment,
to store the recordings,” Robert
Freedman said.

Researchers started visiting
and asking to stay over at the
studio, so the Freedmans put
a bed in there. One Klezmer
enthusiast stayed for more than
a week.

“We finally decided that it
belonged in an institution,”
Robert Freedman said.

Robert Freedman wanted
to donate it to an organiza-
tion in New York City. But
again, it was his wife who made
the final call: It had to stay in
Philadelphia. “Molly said, ‘We’ll never see
it again,’” Robert Freedman
recalled. “‘It belongs here.’”
When they
donated the collection to Penn, the
Freedmans got an appraisal
valuing it at $240,000,
according to Robert Freedman.

But it’s worth much more than
just dollars.

The Freedmans celebrate
their 63rd wedding anniversary
this month. Molly Freedman
has dementia, but she can still
remember the Yiddish songs
and sing along.

Robert Freedman will start
a song, and Molly Freedman
will “go right into it,” as her
husband described it, and then
the two will sing together.

“The significance to the
Jewish community,” said their
granddaughter, Maya Pratt-
Freedman, a Penn student
who recently made a short film
about the archive for a final
assignment. “It’s a gold mine of
the past.” l
jsaffren@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
Starting the
Conversation When to talk to Mom and Dad about senior living
Don’t wait for an emergency to
start talking with your loved
ones about senior living. Take
the time now, and make the
choice together.

Call for a free copy of our guide,
Helpful Tips for When It’s Time.

215-706-8376 C ommonwealth
SENIOR LIVING at WILLOW GROVE
Welcome Home
Personal Care & Memory Care
1120 York Road, Willow Grove, PA 19090
www.Commonwealthsl.com JANUARY 13, 2022
13