Contact B'nai B'rith

1120 20th Street NW, Suite 300N Washington, D.C. 20036

info@bnaibrith.org

202-857-6600

Picture

Born into poverty in New Orleans, Louis Armstrong was forced to find work selling coal and matches in the Red Light District and the Irish Channel neighborhood at the age of 7.

Luckily, the Karnofskys, a Jewish-Lithuanian family in the city, helped him along the way. In his long essay detailing his Jewish connection called “Louis Armstrong + the Jewish Family in New Orleans, La., the Year of 1907,” Armstrong recalls singing a song with the family called “Russian Lullaby.” In 1950, he recorded a song under the same name (featured below) at Decca Studios in New York City: