@ParlorSongs : Among that flow of new citizens who came to our shores, was one Isadore Baline and his family who arrived in New York from Temun Russia in 1888. Israel, born May 11, 1888 was the youngest of eight children in the family.

@The Guide to Musical Theatre : When his father died, Berlin, just turned 13, took to the streets in various jobs, working as a busker, singing for pennies, then as a singer / waiter in a Chinatown café. In 1907 he published his first song, Marie From Sunny Italy.

@Jewish Virtual Library : : Berlin was married for only a year to Dorothy Goetz, who died from typhoid contracted while on their honeymoon in Cuba in 1913. He married Ellin Mackay in 1926. She was the daughter of Clarence Mckay, president of Postal Telegraph Company, a leading Catholic layman who opposed the wedding. The Berlins had three daughters.

@Solid! : In 1919 Berlin formed his own music publishing company, still in existance today. He also co-founded ASCAP. Over the years Berlin wrote dozens of plays and films. His song ”Blue Skies” was featured in the first talkie, The Jazz Singer.

@City Journal : It is supremely fitting that “God Bless America”—that stirring hymn to patriotism—has become our unofficial anthem in the aftermath of September 11, since the life of the legendary New York songsmith who penned it, Irving Berlin, born one Israel Baline in 1888 in distant Siberia,

@The Songwriters Hall of Fame : With a life that spanned more than 100 years and a catalogue that boasted over 1000 songs, Irving Berlin epitomized Jerome Kern’s famous maxim that “Irving Berlin has no place in American music — he is American music.”

@Freedom From Religion Foundation : : The man who wrote “White Christmas” actually hated Christmas. “Many years later,” Mary Ellin writes, “when Christmas was celebrated irregularly in my parents’ house, if at all, my mother said, almost casually, ‘Oh, you know, I hated Christmas, we both hated Christmas. We only did it for you children.’ ”

to be continued… probably