Seymour Rexite (January 18, 1914 – October 14, 2002), originally Shayele Rechtzeit, was a Polish American singer and actor. He was a significant figure in

Yiddish theatre Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revues ...

in the United States, and with his wife

Miriam Kressyn Miriam Kressyn (March 4, 1910 – October 28, 1996), one of the "First Ladies of the Yiddish Theater", acted and sang on stage, film and radio; she wrote plays as well. Personal life Kressyn was born in Białystok, Poland, the seventh child of M ...

he performed on the radio over four decades, performing pop standards in

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

. He also served as president of the

Hebrew Actors' Union The Hebrew Actors' Union (HAU) was a craft union for actors in Yiddish theater in the United States (primarily in New York City), and was the first actors' union in the United States. The union was affiliated with the Associated Actors and Artiste ...

. Web page includes video and full transcript. Born in

Piotrków Trybunalski Piotrków Trybunalski (; also known by #Etymology, alternative names), often simplified to Piotrków, is a city in central Poland with 71,252 inhabitants (2021). It is the second-largest city situated in the Łódź Voivodeship. Previously, it wa ...

Congress Poland Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...

, and a child prodigy, Rexite immigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in 1920, along with his father, a

cantor A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds. In Judaism, a cantor sings and lead ...

, and his older brother Jack Rechtzeit, an actor and songwriter. Several years later, immigration quotas prevented Rexite's mother and other siblings from emigrating from Poland, so Rexite sang a song, which his brother Jack had composed, before President

Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer ...

which so moved that he granted them entry visas.Knickerbocker Village blogspot
/ref> At age 13, he took over the lead in the Yiddish musical ''The Rabbi's Melody'' when 30-year-old

Ludwig Satz Ludwig Satz (18 February 1891 – 31 August 1944) was an actor in Yiddish theater and film, best known for his comic roles. A 1925 ''New York Times'' article singles him out as the greatest Yiddish comic actor of the time. He was born in L ...

left to play in ''

Potash and Perlmutter ''Potash and Perlmutter'' is a 1923 American silent comedy film directed by Clarence G. Badger. The film is based on an ethnic Jewish comedy with characters created by Montague Glass and Charles Klein for a 1913 Broadway play of the same name ...

'' on Broadway. Unlike Satz, who had been a grown man playing a teenage boy, he was the actual age of the character. He later starred in ''The Song of the Ghetto'' at a theatre on Second Avenue in the

Yiddish Theater District The Yiddish Theatre District, also called the Jewish Rialto and the Yiddish Realto, was the center of New York City's Yiddish theatre scene in the early 20th century. It was located primarily on Second Avenue, though it extended to Avenue B, b ...

opposite the famous soprano

Isa Kremer Isabelle Yakovlevna Kremer (russian: Изабелла Яковлевна Кремер; 21 October 1887 – 7 July 1956) was a soprano of Russian Jewish descent who at various times of her life held citizenship in Russia, the United States, and ...

. He first appeared on the radio, singing in Yiddish, in 1927. In the 1930s he flirted with crossover success, performing with

The Dorsey Brothers The Dorsey Brothers were an American studio dance band, led by Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. They started recording in 1928 for OKeh Records. History The Dorsey Brothers recorded songs for the dime store labels (Banner, Cameo, Domino, Jewel, Oriole, ...

in late-night shows at

Billy Rose Billy Rose (born William Samuel Rosenberg; September 6, 1899 – February 10, 1966) was an American impresario, theatrical showman and lyricist. For years both before and after World War II, Billy Rose was a major force in entertainment, with sh ...

's Casino de Paree, but decided to focus on the Yiddish-language side of his career. He married Miriam Kressyn, another star of the Yiddish stage, in 1943. The two had a long-running radio program on

WEVD WEVD was an American brokered programming radio station with some news-talk launched in August 1927 by the Socialist Party of America. Making use of the initials of recently deceased party leader Eugene Victor Debs in its call sign, the station ...

radio, performing Yiddish translations of pop music standards (largely their own translations of everything from

Irving Berlin Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin; yi, ישראל ביילין; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-American composer, songwriter and lyricist. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook. Born in Imperial Russi ...

to ''

Man of La Mancha ''Man of La Mancha'' is a 1965 musical with a book by Dale Wasserman, music by Mitch Leigh, and lyrics by Joe Darion. It is adapted from Wasserman's non-musical 1959 teleplay ''I, Don Quixote'', which was in turn inspired by Miguel de Cervantes ...

'') as well as songs written in his native language. Kressyn died at age 86 in 1996; they had no children. Rexite died in 2002 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The couple is buried under the family name Rechtzeit in Block 67 of Mount Hebron Cemetery. This section is reserved for those who were part of New York Yiddish theater and is maintained by the Yiddish Theatrical Alliance.

References

External links

*
New York Times obituaryYiddish Radio Project articlebiography
at the

Milken Archive The Milken Archive of Jewish Music is a collection of material about the history of Jewish Music in the United States. It contains roughly 700 recorded musical works, 800 hours of oral histories, 50,000 photographs and historical documents, an ext ...

Children's biography from scholastic.com
1908 births 2002 deaths People from Piotrków Trybunalski People from Piotrków Governorate Polish emigrants to the United States American people of Polish-Jewish descent Yiddish theatre performers Yiddish-language singers of the United States American male stage actors Jewish American male actors 20th-century American male singers 20th-century American singers Burials at Mount Hebron Cemetery (New York City) {{US-actor-stub