“Immigrant Songs: Yiddish Theater and the American Jewish Experience” explores the history of Yiddish theater at UCLA on April 21. (photo courtesy of the Milken Family Foundation)

The Milken Archive of Jewish Music, an initiative of the Milken Family Foundation, announced the release of “Immigrant Songs: Yiddish Theater and the American Jewish Experience,” a landmark 46-minute documentary tracing the remarkable legacy of Yiddish theater in America – from its Eastern European roots to extraordinary modern revival.

“The Milken Archive has always been committed to preserving and celebrating the music that defines the American Jewish experience,” said Lowell Milken, founder and executive producer of the Milken Archive of Jewish Music. “Immigrant Songs is a natural extension of that mission – a film that not only educates but moves audiences to rediscover a world of music and culture that helped build America.”

The release of “Immigrant Songs” marks a natural expression of the Milken Archive’s founding mission to preserve and share the music that has defined the American Jewish experience. It arrives at a moment when Yiddish is undergoing a genuine cultural resurgence, with new artistic work, growing university programs and communities across the country rediscovering the language, literature and music.

The film highlights pioneering figures such as Avrom Goldfaden and Boris Thomashefsky, through its golden age in the 1920s and 1930s, to its mid-century decline and remarkable modern revival – culminating in the celebrated 2018 production of “Fiddler on the Roof” in Yiddish, “Fidler afn Dakh.” Through archival footage, original music by Frank London and testimony from more than 20 leading scholars and performers, the film illuminates a world that was at once deeply rooted in Eastern European Jewish culture and transformative in its encounter with American life.

The film is directed by Jeff Janeczko, curator and COO of the Milken Archive, and written by Jeff Janeczko and Barak Goldman. It is produced by Mark Kligman, Barak Goldman and Nikki Parker Hayes, vice president of postproduction at Milken Family Foundation, with Lowell Milken serving as executive producer.

A cast of historians, ethnomusicologists, theater critics and performing artists participated in the film, including Joel Grey, actor and director; Zalmen Mlotek, artistic director of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene; Mark Slobin, professor emeritus of music at Wesleyan University; Hankus Netsky, musician and scholar of Jewish American music at the New England Conservatory; Avi Hoffman; Hasia Diner, professor emerita at NYU; Debra Caplan, Baruch College, CUNY; and Edna Nahshon, Jewish Theological Seminary.

Immigrant Songs is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, Hoopla and the Naxos Video Library beginning April 17. The film’s public premiere takes place on Tuesday, April 21, from 7-9 p.m. at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall, 445 Charles E. Young Drive East.

For information, visit milkenarchive.org.