![\"Friedman](\"http:\/\/lamp1.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Friedman-doctorate-3.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe St. Joseph native received an honorary doctorate from Missouri Western at the commencement ceremony in December 2013. His book had just been published, and he gave all the graduates a copy of his book.<\/p>\n
Yossel in the book title, he said, comes from the Yiddish name for Joseph. \u201cThe way my parents said Yossel was always a barometer for me \u2013 it either meant I was in trouble or I had done something right,\u201d he wrote in the book.<\/p>\n
As a student at the St. Joseph Junior College, he often worked late at night at a local store and then stayed up to finish homework. He relates how his mother had to come in several times to wake him up in the morning. When she finally called him \u201cYossel\u201d instead of \u201cJoseph,\u201d he knew he better get out of bed.<\/p>\n
He was drafted in 1942 and served with the Army\u2019s 320th<\/sup> Medical Battalion in World War II. His unit was the first to liberate a concentration camp, and Dr. Friedman said he never forgot it. When the war ended, he helped concentration camp survivors until he was discharged. For several years, he visited area schools to share his war experiences.<\/p>\n The book tells of how, at the age of 42, Dr. Friedman gave up a successful podiatry practice to follow his long-time dream of acting professionally, and he was very successful. His first professional theatre job was in Glenwood Springs, Colo. When the three-month stint ended, he moved to New York to pursue his acting career. \u201cHere I was, 42 and balding \u2013 no matinee idol \u2013and going into this crazy business,\u201d he wrote in the book. \u201cBut I had to do this. I didn\u2019t want to go through life thinking how my life might have been had I not done what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n After several auditions, he got a part in \u201cFiddler on the Roof\u201d and traveled all over the U.S. and Canada with the play. He noted that he was in 2,840 performances. \u201c\u2018Fiddler on the Roof\u2019 was my bonanza,\u201d he says. To this day, it doesn\u2019t take much persuading to get Dr. Friedman to sing something from \u201cFiddler on the Roof,\u201d including \u201cIf I Were a Rich Man.\u201d<\/p>\n Shortly after his run with \u201cFiddler on the Roof,\u201d he and his wife, Gladys, moved to Los Angeles where he continued his active acting career. Dr. Friedman also did research for \u201cRipley\u2019s Believe it or Not,\u201d and he won an Emmy Award for his research on <\/b>\u201cNational Geographic\u2019s Secrets of the Titanic.\u201d They moved to St. Joseph in 1994.<\/p>\n The autobiography is a tribute to Gladys, a singer he met in New York. They married in 1969, and she died in 1995. \u201cShe\u2019ll be with me until the day I die,\u201d Dr. Friedman writes in the book. \u201cEven if I were a rich man, I could have asked for nothing more.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe book is also a bouquet to my upbringing, to my parents, to St. Joseph, to my religion and to my friends,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Deborah Butterfield and Sheldon Friedman, Dr. Friedman\u2019s nephew, served as co-editors of the project that took more than six years. \u201cYossel the Dreamer\u201d can be purchased on Amazon.com.<\/p>\n \u201cI went from rags to great riches when I never thought I would leave rags,\u201d Dr. Friedman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dr. Joe Friedman \u201939 fulfilled a long-time dream when he published his autobiography recently. \u201cI had to write a book because everywhere I went I told stories,\u201d said Dr. Friedman, who turned 94 in March. \u201cI lived a blessed life and I know it. I want to tell people so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4323,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions\/4323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}