Connoisseurs of old New York klezmer may be familiar with the two 1927 discs on Brunswick Records by Abe Katzman’s Bessarabian Orchestra: Ismaelover Bulgar/Simchas Torah in Kishenev and Erinerung From Kischenev/Kishenever Bulgar. Abraham Katzman (1868–1940) was a notable presence in the New York Jewish music scene in the 1910s and 1920s, appearing in dozens of advertisements and hiring such figures as Dave Tarras to play in his band. He also had plenty of relatives who went on to become famous, including his son the film producer Sam Katzman, his nephew the bandleader and arranger Louis Katzman, and his grand-nephew, Dallas showrunner Leonard Katzman.
In my research into landsmanshaft and relief society collections at YIVO this month, I’ve been looking for traces of klezmer musicians, or musicians of any kind, with ties to particular communities or organizations. I’m still in the early stages of it, but with so many to choose from, the first boxes I called up are ones from places which I can already tie to klezmer musicians I have researched. So, for example, Beresh Katz and the Glinianer association, or Abe Katzman and the Keshenever/Bessarabier ones. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Katzman was everywhere in YIVO’s collection of the Kishinever Sick Benevolent Society, as well as documents of the same organization in the AJHS’s Landsmanshaft collection. He cofounded the organization in 1903, was its first president and played music for its events into the 1930s. In this post I’ll go over some of those documents and try to put it in the context of his music career in New York.
Which Abe Katzman?
In cases like this, there’s always the possibility that I could be mixing up two people with the same name. Plenty of Jewish men in early 20th century New York were called Abraham Katzman, including another musician. But there are plenty of reasons to think that the landsmanshaft society president and the 1927 klezmer musician are the same person:
- He fits the profile. Born in Chișinău in 1868, he arrived in New York in 1897 or 1898. The organization was founded in 1903.
- In some of the anniversary journals of the organization, Abe Katzman appears in the front sections as a president or ex-president, and in the concert program section as bandleader for the anniversary banquet.
- In the old New York Yiddish press, there are dozens of advertisements for concerts and balls with music by Professor A. Katzman; many of these were put on by the same Kishinever Society.
- 3 of his 4 1927 discs mention Chișinău in their titles, and in some of the Yiddish press advertisements he is said to lead a Kishenever Orkester. More than a passing association!
- The other Abe Katzman musician whose career overlapped with our Abe was born in Minsk Gubernia in the late 1890s. Too young, wrong birthplace.
- In his 1940 obituary in Der Tog, he is identified as the beloved first president of the Kishinever society, and a mention in Motion Picture Daily identifies him as Sam Katzman’s father.
I think the evidence is pretty solid.
The Kishinever Sick Benevolent Society, Inc.
The organization Abe cofounded in December 1903 wasn’t the first Kishenever mutual aid society in New York; a 1903 issue of Der Idisher Zhurnal mentions a Yung Kishenever Untershtitsungs Farayn founded in 1891, which by then was still meeting regularly on Clinton Street. However, the aftermath of the violent Kishinev Pogrom in April 1903 spurred quite a lot of local organizing activity, including charities and support for immigrants. The desire to support Kishinevers fleeing the violence and to give them a comfortable welcome in New York was later explicitly acknowledged as a principal reason for the founding of the Kishinever Sick Benevolent Society.
I couldn’t find newspaper coverage of the December 29th, 1903 founding of the organization, but the group’s own materials acknowledge it as the date. Its original name was the Kishinever Mutual Immigrant Association. Per the various histories of the organization written for their anniversary journals, it was a very small organization at first, which offered limited services. Katzman, as first president, worked to establish a plot for members at Mt. Zion Cemetery, which was secured in 1904. It was not until 1907 that the organization was established enough to offer loan services to its members, which the histories later described as a key step towards creating stability for newly-arrived Kishinevers.
In 1913 it was legally incorporated under its longer-lasting name, the Kishinever Sick Benevolent Society of New York (hereafter KSBS). It was generally referred to by its English name, even in Yiddish transliteration, but its name was occasionally printed in Yiddish (as in the constitution shown above) as der Kishinever Kranken Untershtitsungs Farayn af New York. The amount of sick and death benefits offered by the Society grew through the 1910s as it gained members, and by 1920 they had acquired a building to hold meetings in. By then many of its members were no longer impoverished “green” immigrants but were affluent and well-established. The organization acquired a second and then a third cemetery plot (at Mt. Hebron and United Hebrew), and donated $10,000 towards a seniors home for its aged members.
In the 1928 25th anniversary journal, a two-page tribute to Katzman was published. Calling him “our George Washington,” (!) it touted some of his contributions over the years and noted that he was still active as head of the charity committee. He seems to have remained active in the early 1930s, at which point he was in his 60s. He left for Hollywood in the late 1930s and died in 1940.
Above we can see covers of some of the KSBS anniversary journals which were released at a celebratory banquet every five years. The Society remained quite active and robust at least into the 1960s. As with many such Mutual Aid societies established before World War I, by the 1970s and 1980s its function was mainly related to burial of its very elderly membership, as well as their families. It was dissolved in the early 1990s.
Abe Katzman’s Music Career
I wish I knew more about Abe Katzman’s family background and musical career back in Bessarabia. He emigrated when he was thirty years old, so he had more than a decade of activity in Europe. We have some information about the Katzman family’s musical background from a 2013 conference paper presented by Abe’s grandnephew:
Music was the Katzman family trade. Prior to emigrating to the U.S., Katzmans played in some of the major orchestras in the Russian Empire. Louis Katzman claimed to have been trained as both an artist and as a classical musician in Moscow and elsewhere during the first decade of the twentieth century. [… his] father, Philip, was an orchestra member of one of the Moscow Opera Companies and trained his eldest son on the violin and his own instrument, the cornet, both in Kishinev (Louis’ birthplace) and in Moscow. Louis also claimed to have studied at an Odessa conservatory. At the same time Louis attended an art school near Moscow, and was trained in oils and other media – a background he found useful after immigrating to New York. He recounted that, at the age of 13, in 1903-1904, he was sent out to work with a traveling band master.
The family emigrated from Kishinev to New York. The first members came in the 1890s (including Louis’ uncle Abe Katzman) followed by most of the others in period 1906 to 1908, after the Kishinev Pogroms of 1903 and 1907 – Philip Katzman emigrated in 1905 and Louis arrived in 1907. Louis was naturalized as an American citizen in March 1916.– Michael M. Katzman, “Louis Katzman: His Musical Life and Times.” ARSC Journal 45.2 (2014), p.180–1.
An endnote in the same piece also mentions that Louis may have played in Abe’s orchestra in the years after he arrived in 1907:
In taped interviews in 2003-2005, Berdie Katzman, Louis’ daughter-in-law, recalled being told that Louis played cornet on occasion for his uncle Abraham’s klezmer band (later Abe Katzman’s Bessarabian Orchestra) in Brooklyn during this period.
“Louis Katzman” p.198.
If the family was so active in Russia, there are probable mentions of them in old newspapers. A deep dive for another time. A short biography in the New York listings of the 1921-22 Musical Blue Book of America gives a clue to Abe’s training:
Katzman, Abraham, Conductor. Violinist. 1437 Madison Ave.
Studied, Russia, under Prof. Gilla. Conductor of A. Katzman’s Orchestra, furnishing music for all occasions.
I don’t doubt that Abe was active as a musician as soon as he arrived in New York c.1898. But the earliest actual evidence I have found is from 1912. An ad in Die Wahrheit promises a Full Dress and Civic Ball put on by the Independent Kishinever Ladies’ Farein with music by Prof. Katzman’s union orchestra.
From there I found a few dozen advertisements on jpress, the latest of which was in 1929. You can see a sampling here:
Most are for Kishenever or Bessarabian organizations in New York, although a few are for south Ukrainian ones (e.g. Podolian). Quite often he is only referred to as Prof. Katzman.
The earliest KSBS anniversary journal YIVO has in their collection is the one from 1923. In that issue Katzman’s dance set is listed in the programme:
There isn’t much Bessarabian about this setlist, although I can assume “Selection–Jewish.” is teasing us with more. It does show that Katzman, then in his 50s, was versatile and by necessity kept up with modern American music.
The 1927 Brunswick recordings
And now to the two 1927 discs. DAHR lists some basic information about where and when they were made: at the Brunswick Records office on 7th Avenue in New York, with a 9-man orchestra. Joel Rubin suggests in his recent book that Dave Tarras may have been the clarinetist on the recording (see New York Klezmer in the Early Twentieth Century: The Music of Naftule Brandwein and Dave Tarras, Boydell & Brewer, 2020, p.323).
The Mayrent Collection has both discs available for streaming: Ismaelover Bulgar (a great snappy major-key piece), Simchas Torah in Keshenev (the first part of which most klezmer musicians know as “Oi Tate”), Erinerung fun Kishenev, and my favourite, Kishenever Bulgar. (The Ismaelover and Keshenever Bulgars appears in Susan Watts’ recent book of family repertoire, The Hoffman Book, on pages 119–20.)
Although the discs got decent reviews in trade journals–The Gramophone called it “lively and brimming over with local colour” in October 1928–less and less klezmer discs were being made, and he was not invited back to record more. So, those two discs are our only taste of his decades of Bessarabian klezmer performances in New York.
