Anna Halberstam Rubin; Sholem Beinfeld: America Celebrates 250 Years

Highlights:

Our co-host Sholem Beinfeld, who is Professor of History, Emeritus, Washington University, St. Louis, gives a historic, and Jewish, perspective on the United States of America in observance of the upcoming 4th of July, 2026, holiday. Later in the program, we play a series of songs in honor of America written and performed by a variety of performers and songwriters.

Our featured guest is Anna Halberstam Rubin, talking about her life, including her youth before and during the Holocaust, which she wrote about in her memoir Just a Little Girl: Despair and Deliverance (1993, 1994, 2018 AHR Books, Palo Alto). Anna was born in Poland but grew up in Slovakia, the daughter of Rav Yechezkel Shraga Halberstam, and the granddaughter of two rabbis, Rav Naftali Rubin of of Nowy Wiśnicz, Poland, and Rabbi Menachem Mendele Halberstam of Stropkov, Slovakia, The Stropkover Rebbe. During the war, Anna comes of age and narrowly escapes death on multiple occasions. Eventually, she makes it out of danger by joining one of the remarkable rescue convoys organized by Rudolf Kastner, escaping from Hungary to Switzerland. Her convoy was separate from the better-known Kastner train, which also brought Jewish refugees to safety, including the Satmarer Rebbe, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum. After the war, she eventually moved to the United States and married Israel Rubin, a sociologist, a foremost expert on Hungarian Jewry and author of the book Satmar: An Island in the City. We spoke to Anna at the home of her daughter Haya Rubin in the Lakewood, NJ area in August, 2024.

• Music
  • Ben Gailing: Star Spangled Banner
  • Mandy Patinkin: Nem Mikh Mit Tsu Dem Balgeym / Got, Bentsh Amerike
  • Steven Skybell, Joel Gray and the cast of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish: Got, Bentsh Amerike
  • Daniel Kahn, Sarah Gordon, Lorin Sklamberg, Patrick Farrell, Sveta Kundish, Michael Alpert, Linda Gritz: Dos Land Iz Dayn Land
  • Cantor Leibele Waldman: Ikh Dank Dir Got Far Amerike
  • Mandy Patinkin: American Tune in Yiddish (Words and Music by Paul Simon)
  • The Yiddish Philharmonic Chorus: Neil Diamond’s “America” in Yiddish, in 4-part harmony
  • instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz

Air date: July 1, 2026