RUS (RUTH) RUBIN

RUS (RUTH) RUBIN (September 1, 1906-June 10, 2000)

            She was born Rifkele Royzenblat in Montreal, and she attended a secular Jewish and state school.  In 1924 she settled in New York, studied music there, and sang a classical repertoire.  From 1940 she turned her focus to research Jewish folk music and to sing it before various audiences.  She debuted in print with a poem in Tsukunft (Future) in New York in 1925 and published a book of poetry, Lider (Poems), under her birth name with a foreword by Shmuel Niger (New York, 1929), 63 pp.  She wrote articles on Yiddish folksongs in Yiddish publications, but in the main in English newspapers, especially over the last decades of her life.  In English she published several volumes on Yiddish folk music, among them: Voices of a People: The Story of Yiddish Folksong (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963, 1973; republished: Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 558 pp.  She died in Mamaroneck, New York

Sources: B. Grin, in Morgn frayhayt (New York) (May 3, 1964); Meylekh Ravitsh, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (February 14, 1965); A. Forsher (Y. Mlotek), in Forverts (New York) (January 13, 1974).

Berl Cohen