Peninnah Schram

Peninnah Schram (born December 28, 1934)^[1] is an American academic, author, and folklorist focused on Jewish storytelling.

Schram was born and raised in New London, Connecticut. She was the second child of Samuel E. Manchester (1878-1970), a Lithuanian-American cantor and composer, and Dora (nee Markman, d. 1978), a Belarusian-American Yiddish enthusiast and entrepreneur.^[1][2][3] Growing up, both of her parents frequently told her stories.^[3] She attended The Williams School in New London.^[4]

She earned her bachelor's degree at the University of Connecticut (graduated 1956), and went on to obtain a master's degree at Columbia University in 1968.^[1][5]

In 1964,^[1] Schram and one of her friends founded Theatre à la Carte, which put on plays in New York. She two began working with the Jewish Heritage Theatre at the 92nd Street Y in 1966, where they wrote musical plays for children.^[3]

Schram began teaching at Iona College in 1967.^[3] After two years, she began working at Stern College for Women in their speech and drama department.^[3][5]

Schram became interested in Jewish storytelling in 1970, after working with the Jewish Braille Institute to record books for the blind.^[3] In 1974, Schram taught a class on Jewish storytelling for the first time;^[3] the class was the first American college course to focused on the subject.^[5] That same year, she became "storyteller-in-residence” at The Jewish Museum in Manhattan, recorded three albums, and headed two radio series on storytelling.^[3] During her time at Stern, Schram organized three Jewish Storytelling Festivals.^[5] She later founded the Jewish Storytelling Center.^[3]

Schram retired from teaching in 2015,^[3] and remains professor emerita of speech and drama at Yeshiva University.^[5]

In 1958, Schram met and married Irving Schram. The couple moved to Paris in 1960, and visited Israel for the first time in 1961.^[1] They had two children: Rebecca (b. 1963) and Mordechai (b. 1965).^[1] Irving died in 1967 of a heart attack.^[1][6] Schram remarried in 1974.^[1]

In 1995, Schram received the Covenant Award for Outstanding Jewish Educator.^[3] That same year, she received the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish folklore and anthropology for her book Chosen Tales: Stories Told by Jewish Storytellers.^[5][7] In 2003, the received the National Storytelling Network’s Lifetime Achievement Award.^[5]

• Schram, Peninnah (January 1979). "Where Are Our Storytellers Today?". The Educational Forum. 43 (2): 175–184. doi:10.1080/00131727909338322. ISSN 0013-1725.
• Schram, Peninnah (April 1984). "One generation tells another: The transmission of Jewish values through storytelling". Literature in Performance. 4 (2): 33–45. doi:10.1080/10462938409391555. ISSN 0734-0796.
• Schram, Peninnah (2003). "The Voice is the Messenger of the Heart: Shared Stories Still Work Best". Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought. 37 (4): 5–37. ISSN 0041-0608.
• Schram, Peninnah (2005). "Elijah's Cup of Hope: Healing Through the Jewish Storytelling Tradition". Storytelling, Self, Society. 1 (2): 103–117.

• Schram, Peninnah (1987). Jewish stories one generation tells another. Northvale, N.J: Jason Aronson. ISBN 978-0-87668-967-7.
• Schram, Peninnah (1991). Tales of Elijah the Prophet. Northvale, N.J: J. Aronson. ISBN 978-0-87668-580-8.^[4]
• Schram, Peninnah; Allon, Jeffrey (2000). Ten classic Jewish children's stories. New York: Pitspopany Press. ISBN 978-0-943706-96-2.
• Schram, Peninnah (November 2000). Stories Within Stories: From the Jewish Oral Tradition. Jason Aronson. ISBN 978-0-7657-6142-2.
• Schram, Peninnah (November 2007). The Magic Pomegranate. Lerner Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8225-8856-6.
• Schram, Peninnah; De Conno, Gianni (2008). The hungry clothes and other Jewish folktales. Folktales of the world. New York City: Sterling Pub. Co. ISBN 978-1-4027-2651-4. OCLC 132681414.
• Schram, Peninnah; Davis, Rachayl Eckstein (2012-03-01). The Apple Tree's Discovery. Kar-Ben. ISBN 978-0-7613-8778-7.
• Sasso, Sandy Eisenberg; Schram, Peninnah (2015). Jewish stories of love and marriage: folktales, legends, and letters. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-3898-5.^[8]

• Neile, Caren S. (2021). Peninnah's world: a Jewish life in stories. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7618-7291-7.
• Loeb, Mara (July 2000). "Profile of Peninnah Schram: The teacher and the storyteller". Text and Performance Quarterly. 20 (3): 312–323. doi:10.1080/10462930009366304. ISSN 1046-2937.