Seymour Rexite
Seymour Rexite (January 18, 1908 – October 14, 2002), originally Rechtzeit, was a Polish American singer and actor. He was a pioneer of Yiddish theatre in the United States. He also served as the president of the Hebrew Actors' Union.
Born in Piotrków Trybunalski, Congress Poland, and a child prodigy, Rexite immigrated to the United States in 1920, along with his father, a cantor, and his older brother Jack Rechtzeit, an actor and songwriter. Several years later, immigration quotas prevented Seymour's mother and other siblings from emigrating from Poland, so Seymour sang a song, which his brother Jack had composed, before President Calvin Coolidge which so moved that he granted them entry visas.[1]
Rexite performed Yiddish translations of pop music standards as well as songs written in his native language. He starred in a musical featuring Yiddish music at a theatre on Second Avenue in the Yiddish Theater District opposite the famous soprano Isa Kremer which was entitled The Song of the Ghetto. He married Miriam Kressyn, another star of the Yiddish stage, in 1943. Kressyn died at age 86 in 1996; they had no children. Rexite died in 2002 in New York City. 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.[2] In 1924, he had enough money to bring the rest of his family but he couldn't.
References
- ^ Knickerbocker Village blogspot
- ^ Kilgannon, Corey (2011-03-15). "Yiddish Theater Bids Farewell to Shifra Lerer". New York Times. Archived from the original on 5 October 2012. Retrieved 2011-03-20.
External links
- Seymour Rexite at IMDb
- New York Times obituary
- Yiddish Radio Project article
- biography at the Milken Archive
- Children's biography from scholastic.com
- Seymour Rexite at Find a Grave
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