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Daniel Plotkin
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Born in New York, America.
Father -- R' Tsvi Brv Meir Plotkin, a cantor and rabbi
in New York. As a child he sang with his father, then
with the cantors Krnial, Kuper, Hilman, Kaminski,
Katchko and Yudele Belzer.
Each time they used the best
choir boys, and also exploited them for the Yiddish
theatre. Thus P., with his sharp alto voice, became
aroused at Thomashefsky's theatre, and used to sing a
solo from a "box" (loge) to the "heroes" (Bessie and
Boris Thomashefsky) on the stage.
Due to his father's illness,
he davened later during a Shabbes, already having a
tenor voice, in the Etz Chaim school in Flatbush, and he
was popular there for eight years as a cantor, but he
went away fully from the Yiddish theatre. When Max Gabel
had staged in the People's Theatre "Ir groyser sud" with
Jennie Goldstein, P. there used to make the "mla"
as a "cantor". Laater he performed in solos during
afternoon concerts with Yiddish stars, and in 1913 he
entered into a provincial troupe with whom he traveled
and acted in Bayonne, New Jersey, Lateiner's "Satan in
the Garden of Eden", and in Patterson Kornblit's "Kapital
un arbet" in Zolotarefsky's "Portretn fun der heym".
P. also was manager of a
Yiddish vaudeville in the former Lipzin Theatre, then in
Hartford and in New Haven. In 1926 he "managed" across
the American province Boris and Harry |
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Thomashefsky, in "Shteyger
protses" and sang by himself between the acts.
In 1932 he visited, as a
cantor and folksinger, France, Belgium and Hollland.
Later he left the chazznut, opened a handbag factory,
and also, as one of the very first to perform with a
Yiddish radio program in New York.
In 1935 P. moved to Los
Angeles, where he directed his factory, and at the same
time was a cantor for your years with a mixed chorus and
an official in the Hollywood temple Beth El. He later
became the owner of the "El Morocco Hotel" in Palm
Springs, davened during the High Holidays in various
synagogues in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Stockton,
Oakland and visited Mexico in 1950, where he davened in
the Ndkhi Israel synagogue.
During his travels across
Europe in 1952, P. sang in the sanatorium of Grata
Feroto for refugees from Hitler's hell in Milan, Italy,
later in the Fernwald camp in Germany and in the Munich
synagogue. He also gave concerts for six weeks in cities
and colonies in the land of Israel.
P. for a certain time was on
the executive (board) of the Cantors Association in New
York.
In 1953 P. issued a book
"Psalms With Music", which presented in Hebrew and in
English collected compositions of eighteen chapters of
the Tehilim, organized by Pual Discount.
Sh. E.
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Sh. Opatovsky [Zalmen
Zylbercweig] -- khazan daniel plotkin -- der man mit
a skh feikeytn, "Five-year anniversary of
Zylbercweig's Weekly Yiddish Radio Hour", Los
Angeles, 1953.
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