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Back to Featured Interviews >> MEET YALE STROM
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| Yale Strom |
I loved to read biographies when I was a young reader. I could imagine myself walking in their shoes and living their experiences. There were two biographies that really stuck with me when I was a kid. One was a biography about Harriet Tubman and the other was a biography about Mordechai Anelewicz. The Harriet Tubman story related to me because I was growing up in Detroit and most of my childhood friends were African-American. I was keenly aware of the difficult situation African-American had in America, especially in Detroit and Tubman was a fighter against injustice. Growing up in a Jewish home I was also painfully aware of the Holocaust and was proud to read about Anelewicz because it showed how Jews did fight back and were not passive against overwhelming odds.
When you went to college, were you already pursuing a writing career? (or a career in illustrating? or just art in general?)
I always enjoyed writing but actually during my undergraduate years in college I did not think I would become a writer. In fact I was not sure what I was going to do but I did know that I liked being creative and that perhaps I would pursue some kind of career that would incorporate this.
If you didn’t write as a child, then when did you start writing and what inspired you to start?
I was inspired to write after my sojourn to the former East Bloc countries in 1981. After having lived with Jewish and Rom Holocaust survivors and listening to their heroic stories of survival I knew then I wanted to somehow incorporate their stories and my experiences in some form of literature.
What was your first job when you graduated from college?
My first job after college was being a busker, a street musician playing klezmer, Rom, bluegrass and swing music to the people who walked by and cared to take a moment to listen to me play on the violin.
How soon after that was your first book published?
It took six years after I graduated from college and three after graduate school before I published my first book.
When was it published?
It was published in 1987.
Was your first book accepted immediately? or did you experience a number of rejections?
My first book was a “coffee table” photo-documentary book about the life of the Jews in Eastern Europe who stayed behind to make a life again in their hometowns after the Holocaust. It was accepted immediately and even garnered a New York Times review. People were stunned to find out that there was Jewish life, Jewish culture that survived in Eastern Europe after the Holocaust and during the Stalinist years.
What are the topics are some of your books?
I have written about Jewish life in Eastern Europe, Sephardic Jews of the Balkans and Mediterrenean, Rom (Gypsies), immigrant youth in America, klezmer music and history books, etc.
What gave you the idea for A WEDDING THAT SAVED A TOWN?
I got the idea to write A WEDDING THAT SAVED A TOWN because I had learned about this story during one of my many ethnographic trips to Eastern Europe. Since I collect, play and compose klezmer music I was fascinated about this real klezmer story. Musicians of all kinds lead interesting lives but here was a story I had never heard before in any culture: a wedding being held in a cemetery. Children love music and they love ghoulish things. I thought writing a story that combines both of these elements plus values while making the characters serious and humorous would make for a fun tale to read and retell to others in their own words.