Avrom Goldfaden: A Timeline
Avrom Goldfaden packed several lifetimes of activity and creativity before his death on January 8, 1909 at the age of sixty-seven. Like so many other academically talented young men from his milieu whose families could afford for their sons to pursue a course of advanced study, he progressed through the various levels of a traditional Jewish education and ultimately received his rabbinic ordination. Serving as a rabbi, however, ended up being just one of variety of professional roads he took only briefly before embarking on a very different path. Other stops on his journey included petty trade, the thought of medical school, journalism, and a literary career rather than a theatrical one.
The latter career choice, when Goldfaden was in his thirties and at yet another professional crossroads, was—well, not a career at all, at least when it came to writing or performing in a Jewish language like Yiddish or Hebrew. While plays had been written and performed in both languages for centuries, the conditions had not yet arisen for a professional theatrical culture to exist in either. But by the time Goldfaden found himself at loose ends in the mid-1870s, though, many of the ingredients were in place that would enable him to form a Yiddish theatre troupe and take it on the road. There was an audience of millions of Yiddish speakers, mostly in Eastern Europe, to tap into. There was a longstanding performance tradition, even if it was mostly amateur and seasonal. There was a rich musical tradition, and talented singers and instrumentalists to perform it. And there was the influence of the cultures with which Yiddish speakers were regularly in contact. The more acculturated among them had access to works of European dramas, comedies, operas, operettas, and other entertainments. A portion of Eastern European Yiddish speakers as of the 1870s had some sense of what theatre was and could be. They just had very little sense of how it might look and sound, as a year-round, professional endeavor, in mame-loshn, their mother tongue.
It would be Goldfaden, organizing performances in the Pomul Verde beer garden in Iaşi, Romania in the autumn of 1876, who would pave the way toward the creation of the modern Yiddish stage. As the timeline below illustrates, new plays would flow from his pen in the years that followed, helping to kick-start a repertoire that a rapidly growing cast of rivals like Joseph Lateiner, Moyshe Hurwitz, Y. Y. Lerner, and others would energetically add to. Remarkably, from a ragtag troupe that Goldfaden would later quip consisted of one and a half performers, the Yiddish stage would explode into a global phenomenon by the end of the century, and contribute to the pantheon of noteworthy Western dramas, productions, performances, music, and set and costume design.
Goldfaden’s life and work would be intimately bound up in the development of the modern Yiddish stage from early adulthood to his death in New York City in 1908. The timeline below is offered as a road map to key moments in his life and career. It gives some sense of his movements from place to place; many plays (some of them never published, and some of those unpublished plays apparently no longer extant) beyond his most famous ones; his endeavors outside of Yiddish theatre, including several volumes of Yiddish poetry, and several works of Hebrew poetry and drama; and his involvement in communal affairs, particularly in the Zionist movement that, as it happens, became a major force in the Jewish world more or less at the same time that the Yiddish theatre did.
Goldfaden’s Life and Work
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1840
Avrom Goldenfodem is born on July 12th in Old Constantine (Starykonstantyniv, present-day Ukraine), to Khayim Lipe and Khane Rivke Goldenfodem.
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1850
Writes his first Hebrew poem, Pidyon ha-bakhur [Redemption of the Firstborn Son].
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1855
Enters a government-run Jewish school.
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1857
Graduates with honors from the Kazyoner Jewish School and subsequently enters the Zhitomir Rabbinical Academy.
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1862
Begins publishing Hebrew poems in the journal Ha-melits.
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1863
Plays the title role in a school production of Shloyme Ettinger’s satire Serkele.
Publishes his first Yiddish poems in the literary journal Kol mevaser.
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1865
Publishes a book of his collected writings in Hebrew, Tsitsim u-frakhim [Blossoms and Flowers].
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1866
Publishes Dos yidele, “poems in simple Yiddish” (Zhitomir). The book will be reprinted in 1891 (Warsaw), 1898 (Lemberg), 1903 (Warsaw), and 1906 (Lemberg).
Completes his rabbinical studies with the title, “Teacher of the first level from the Jewish government school,” and teaches briefly in a government-run Jewish school in Simferopol.
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1868
Moves to Odessa. Marries Perele Verbl, daughter of poet Eliyohu-Mordkhe Verbl.
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1869
Publishes Di yidene [The Jewish Woman], “a variety of poems in simple Yiddish,” consisting of seven poems and his first plays: Tsvey shkheynes [Two Neighbors] and Di mume Sosye [Aunt Sosye]. The book is reprinted in 1872.
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1875
Financial collapse forces him to leave Russia—first to Munich, where he plans to study medicine, and then to Lemberg, where he campaigns for secular learning.
23 July: With Yitskhok Yoyl Linetski, starts a newspaper, Yisrolik (at first called Der alter yisrolik). On 2 February 1876, the paper is banned in Russia.
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1876
Moves to Czernowitz and then Iaşi. Invited to recite poetry at Shimen Mark’s Cafe. Starts theatre activity with a two-act sketch for Yisroel Grodner and Sokher Goldstein.
Moves to Botoşani, where his play Di rekrutn [The Recruits] plays to packed houses.
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1877
Moves to Galatz. Performs at Hotel Tsuker with a larger company. Writes a one-act vaudeville, Dos bintl holts [The Bundle of Wood]. Recruits the actress Sarah Segal, later known as Sophia Goldstein-Karp.
Moves to Braila, where a temporary stage is constructed in the beer hall of a hotel. The company performs a two-act musical comedy, Di bobe mitn eynikl [Grandmother and Grandchild], which he later expands to three acts.
Spring: Moves to Bucharest. Recruits former choristers Zelig Mogulesco, Leyzer Zukerman, and Moyshe Zilberman.
Premieres of the comedy Shmendrik and the melodrama Di kaprizne kale, oder Kabtsnzon et Hungerman [The Capricious Bride, or Pauperson and Hungerman]. Mogulesco’s success makes Grodner jealous, and Goldfaden translates German playwright August von Kotzebue’s Di viste Insel [The Deserted Island] for Grodner; the play is performed as Di vilde inzl [The Wild Island]. Grodner leaves the company and goes back to Shimen Mark’s in Jassy.
Returns to Bucharest. Here, and later back at the Pomul Verde in Iaşi, a number of minor plays—many of them one-acts—have their premieres this year.
Also in 1877, a rival company emerges under the leadership of Moyshe Hurwitz.
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1877–78
Writes and performs at least seven new plays, by far the most significant being Di kishefmakherin [The Sorceress]. Jacob Adler invites Goldfaden’s company to Odessa.
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1879
7 April: First performs in Odessa, with great success, but is soon banned by the censor and forced to leave during the summer. Meets major cultural figures like Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh and Moyshe-Leyb Lilienblum.
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1880
January: Travels to St. Petersburg to appeal the censor’s ban and gets permission to perform throughout Russia.
Performs in Odessa and Nikolayev, and under his brother Naftule’s leadership, establishes another troupe in Kishinev. Goldfaden’s troupe later performs in Poltava, then briefly returns to Odessa in April 1880.
Later that year, travels to Rostov-on-Don, Kharkiv, Moscow, and Berdichev.
Late 1880 and early 1881: Writes Der fanatik, oder beyde Kuni-leml [The Fanatic, or Both Kuni-Lemls], later changed to Di tsvey Kuni-leml [The Two Kuni-Lemls].
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1881
Pogroms in the south force Goldfaden back to St. Petersburg by July. Writes Shulamis, oder bas yerushalayim [Shulamis, or The Daughter of Jerusalem] and Doctor Almasado oder di yidn in Palermo [Doctor Almasado or The Jews in Palermo].
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1883
Writes and produces Bar Kokhba.
14 September: New restrictions on performing Yiddish theatre in Russia.
Publishes a book of poetry, Dos fidele [The Little Violin].
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1884
Publishes a collection of poems, Yisrolik.
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1885
Moves to Warsaw. Writes Shabsiel, a ten-act poetic meditation on a pogrom in Russia.
Through the intervention of Khayim Zelig Slonimski, gets permission to perform in Warsaw—but in German. Meets major Yiddish writers and gets involved in Warsaw Zionist circles. Reunites with Linetski.
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1885–86
Shares the Daytshes Teater with a Russian company. Thousands fill the theatre each night, forcing the assimilationist Polish Jewish press to change its opinion about him.
Yiddish writer Yankev Bernas translates Shulamis into Polish, and it is successfully performed on the Polish stage.
After a falling out with the Russian director, Goldfaden goes to Łódź.
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1887
Moves to New York, where he is seen as competition and receives a cool reception. Writes the operettas Akhashveyresh [Ahasuerus] and Akeydes yitskhok [The Binding of Isaac].
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1889
Moves to London, where he heads a company at the Princess Club Theatre for several months.
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1890
In Paris, founds the Club Dramatique Israélite Russe, a critical but not commercial success.
October: Moves to Lemberg. Warmly received by the Zionist intelligentsia.
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1891
His epic six-act drama Meshiekhs tsaytn?! [The Messianic Era?!] premieres in Lemberg on December 15.
Also writes Yehuda ha-makabi [Judah Maccabee] and Yudis un Holofern [Judith and Holofernes], and spends time in Romania.
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1894–95
Directs a Yiddish theatre in Lemberg. Premieres of Rebe Yozelman, Rotshild, and Dos tsente gebot [The Tenth Commandment].
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1897
In Lemberg and Vienna. Publishes plays. Returns to Paris. Tries in vain to start a new company during the World’s Fair. Active in Zionist activities.
A second, expanded volume of Tsitsim u’frakhim is published in Krakow.
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1898
Publishes Yidishe natsyonale gedikhte [Jewish National Poems].
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1899
Writes Der mentshnfreser [The Maneater].
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1900
Named a Paris delegate to the World Zionist Congress in London. The Yiddish world celebrates his 60th birthday.
Welcomed elaborately in London, where a fund is established to support him and his wife for a year. Resumes writing his autobiography.
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1903
Returns to America. Writes occasional articles in Di idishe gazeten. Welcomed by the young Zionists of the Theodore Herzl Club.
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1906
Premiere in New York of Goldfaden’s Hebrew one-act play, David be-milkhamah [David at War].
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1907
Writes his last play, Ben Ami, inspired in part by George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, which is produced at the People’s Theatre.
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1908
9 January: Dies in New York City. Over 100,000 people are said to have seen him to his rest.
