Simon Pascal portrait from Das retziele 1910

Simon Paskal ( yi, שמעון פּאַסקאַל or ; February 8, 1877 – October 17, 1930) was a Romanian-born American

Yiddish Theater 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 revu ...

actor and

tenor A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...

who recorded numerous Yiddish-language discs during the early twentieth century.

Early life

Paskal was the son of a blacksmith, and worked for his father as a youth; due to his excellent singing voice he also became a choirboy for Cantor Abraham Osher in Galați. According to his

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

draft registration card Simon was born on February 8, 1877. During the 1899 anti-Semitic riots in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

, Paskal left the country on foot (part of the movement called the fusgeyers), eventually arriving in 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 1900 according to the Lexicon of Yiddish Theatre, or 1903 according to census documents. By 1904, his wife Sarah had joined him in the United States. He soon became a Yiddish-language singer 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 ...

's east side, and then became a

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

actor. In the first five years Simon and Sarah were in New York, they had two daughters, Pearl and Dorothy.

Musical career

In the first decade of his arrival in the United States, Paskal began to record numerous Yiddish-language records for

Zonophone Zonophone (early on also rendered as Zon-O-Phone) was a record label founded in 1899 in Camden, New Jersey, by Frank Seaman. The Zonophone name was not that of the company but was applied to records and machines sold by Seaman's Universal Talki ...

, including

Avram Goldfaden Abraham Goldfaden (Yiddish: אַבֿרהם גאָלדפֿאַדען; born Avrum Goldnfoden; 24 July 1840 – 9 January 1908), also known as Avram Goldfaden, was a Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in the languages Yid ...

compositions such as ''Dos yoseml'', as well as more contemporary compositions by

Louis Friedsell Louis Friedsell (born 1863 or 1865, Yekaterinoslav, Ukraine; died 25 June 1923, New York, United States) was a conductor and composer for the Yiddish theatre. He has written the music for about 150 plays and operettas (partly by himself, partly wi ...

, Arnold Perlmutter, and others. In the 1910s he began to record on other labels such as

Victor Records The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer that operated independently from 1901 until 1929, when it was acquired by the Radio Corporation of America and subsequently operated as a subsidi ...

and

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

. In addition to Yiddish music, he also recorded a number of

Romanian language Romanian (obsolete spellings: Rumanian or Roumanian; autonym: ''limba română'' , or ''românește'', ) is the official and main language of Romania and the Moldova, Republic of Moldova. As a minority language it is spoken by stable communi ...

songs for those labels. Paskal left the United States for

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

during this time, and joined a troupe headed by Jacob Silbert; by 1913 he returned to the United States and joined Louis Coopersmith's Cleveland Royal Theatre, acting in such plays as ''Bar Kokhba'' and ''Shulamis''. He also continued to record during this time. A 1918 advertisement in the Yiddish newspaper ''Morgen Zhurnal'' promoted a concert he held with Clara Gold, Benny Zeidman and other Yiddish singers promised songs from the best operas, Jewish songs, and new comedy songs. Another advertisement in the ''Morgen Zhurnal'' two years later described "an entirely new English novelty act". Seeking a change of career, he eventually trained as 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 performed less and less in the theater the early 1920s. Some notable appearances he did make were in a 1921 Yiddish-language production of

La Juive ''La Juive'' () (''The Jewess'') is a grand opera in five acts by Fromental Halévy to an original French libretto by Eugène Scribe; it was first performed at the Opéra, Paris, on 23 February 1835. Composition history ''La Juive'' was one of t ...

at the Lexington Theatre, and the titular role in ''Bar Kokhba'' in a 1922 production. He began to record more

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

liturgical music for

and

OKeh Records Okeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Ott ...

during the early 1920s, although he continued to record Yiddish songs as well. He died on October 17, 1930 in

. Contemporary newspapers reported his death as a suicide.

References

External links

List of Simon Paskal recordings
at the Discography of American Historical Recordings {{DEFAULTSORT:Paskal, Simon People from Galați County 1881 births 1930 deaths Romanian Ashkenazi Jews Yiddish theatre performers Hazzans Romanian emigrants to the United States Suicides in New York City 1930 suicides Zonophone Records artists Columbia Records artists Victor Records artists Suicides by hanging in New York City 20th-century American singers