7. The mystery of Solomon Levy

Who is the gramophone man? In the final episode of the series Nadia and Vivi go down an extraordinary rabbit-hole of East End history. They investigate the mysterious figure of Solomon Levy, immortalised in Yiddish East End street songs. But what is his connection with the ubiquitous gramophone man who haunted Petticoat Lane market with his clapped out gramophone on a rusty pram playing old Yiddish songs? This iconic figure featured in the famous 1955 film A Kid for Two Farthings as well as photographs, drawings and is our podcast image. What is fiction and what is real in the history of the Jewish East End? To help us answer this question, we invite broadcaster Alan Dein for an East End musical tour.

The Cockney Yiddish Podcast is written and presented by Nadia Valman and Vivi Lachs

Produced by Natalie Steed at Rhubarb Rhubarb for Queen Mary University of London

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council

Guest: Alan Dein

Contributors: Monty Bixer, Nat, Charles Fox, Sylvie Reid, Alice, Hannah Grant, Naomi, Emanuel Litvinoff

Reader in English: Miriam Margolyes

Featured story: Moshe Domb, ‘Petticoat Lane’, translated by Barry Smerin. From East End Jews: Sketches from the London Yiddish Press (Wayne State University Press, 2025).

Featured songs:

• Josef Rosenblatt, ‘Eili, Eili’. From Best Yiddish Songs (Victor Matrix, 1923)
• Klezmer Klub, ‘Old Solomon Levy’. From the CD Whitechapel mayn Vaytshepl (Klub Records, 2009)
• Mendel and his Mishpokhe Band, ‘A Kosher Fox Trot Medley (Petticoat Lane) Part 1 (1929). Digitised on the CD Music is the Most Beautiful Language in the World Yiddisher Jazz in London’s East End 1920s-1950s(Playloud, 2018)

Theme music: Klezmer Klub, ‘Vaytshepl mayn vaytshepl’ (trad) and ‘Yiddisher Honga’ (trad). From the CD Whitechapel mayn Vaytshepl (Klub Records, 2009)

Podcast image: © Jeremy Richardson

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