Bertha Kalich [Kalish], My Life: An Autobiography, pt. I
Published in Der tog (the day) – March 7-Nov. 14, 1925
Translated by Amanda (Miryem-Khaye) Seigel
BERTHA KALICH (1874-1939) was a renowned actress on the Yiddish and English language stage. Born in Lviv, Ukraine, she began her career as a chorus girl in the Skarbek Polish theatre, becoming an early prima donna in Gimpel’s Theatre and performing throughout eastern Europe, including at the Jignitsa Yiddish theatre in Bucharest. Brought to America by manager/impresario Joseph Edelstein, she became a prominent actress on the New York Yiddish stage. Though a skilled singer, she preferred serious drama to operettas and musical melodramas, and advocated for better quality Yiddish plays and higher artistic standards. Kalich was among the first to perform works by Jacob Gordin, a pioneering playwright who introduced realism to the Yiddish stage. She was also the first Yiddish actress to achieve major crossover success on the English-language stage. She wrote a serialized memoir, “Mayn leben” [My life] with journalist Tsvi-Hirsh Rubinshteyn, published in the New York Yiddish daily, Der tog, from March 7-November 14, 1925.
Previous excerpts from her translated memoir appear on the Digital Yiddish Theatre Project website:
“A day that tortured my body and tormented my soul”: Bertha Kalich’s Kol Nidre in Bucharest
PART 1: CHILDHOOD
Translator’s note: Bertha grew up in a traditional, modest Jewish home in Lviv as the longed-for and indulged only child of Babette (Bashe) Halber Kalich, a fancy seamstress, and Zalmen Kalich, owner of a brush factory. Somewhat unusually, her parents supported her stage dreams, despite the financial obstacles.
Saturday, March 7, 1925
Mom-and-dad troubles
“Sha, be quiet!”
From all sides, heads turned toward a table in the middle of a garden theatre on Jagellonska Street in Lviv and looked angrily at a little girl with dark, sparkling little eyes, who in the very middle of the third act of Goldfaden’s Kishef-makherin [The sorceress], burst out with a cry and wanted to go onstage.
“I can sing, too!” sobbed the little girl and stamped her feet…[The audience] soon began grumbling in earnest, and her embarrassed parents had to take their stubborn and spoiled child home.
That very girl, as you can probably see for yourself, was me.
March 14, 1925
I don’t wanna go to school1
I was born ten years after my parents got married. I was their only daughter and their only child. My mother was the only daughter and the only child of her mother, and my Lillian is the only daughter of an only child.
The entire family thought only of me. All day they talked about Beylkele, as though nothing else in the world existed…
And as though out of spite, I was actually quite a mischievous child. I could jump better than them, play a trick; I was the greatest troublemaker.
“It’s not allowed”—I heard the same words from all sides. If it wasn’t my mother, it was the nanny, and if it wasn’t the nanny, it was my grandmother…
My grandmother, may she have a radiant paradise, was—how should I say it?—a kind of “Mirele Efros”2 in our family. Everyone trembled before her, and everyone loved her. Her strong character made her the boss of everyone and everything, her word was law. She ruled with the strength of her strong will and with the power of her healthy mind…
It was at her request that I used to go with my father and grandfather Friday nights and Saturdays to the synagogue. …Those Sabbaths and holidays were wonderful, just wonderful, for me. In my house the Queen of Sabbath reposed. The sun shone festively. Every corner of my home was filled with love for me. Everyone’s eyes laughed and beamed when they looked at me. I was the radiant star of the house. The entire “stage” belonged to me. But it was not the boards of the stage floor that I felt under my feet—it was a firm foundation. It was not spotlights that illuminated my face, but God’s superb sun and the wonderful love of my parents…
***
On a beautiful Sabbath day, when we were all sitting around the table, my grandmother said, “tomorrow, as God wills it, on my word Sabbath, Beylkele will start attending kheyder,”3
Her “statement” came so unexpectedly, so suddenly, that no one knew at that moment what to answer.
My mother responded.
“It is, it seems, still a little bit too early, maybe we should wait through the summer, and after that…”
But my grandmother did not let her finish.
“It’s already high time, high time”, she said. “She is after all, your kadish”4 … Sunday morning my father took me by the hand and led me somewhere down a side street and soon I was standing before the rebe.5 …Before I knew it I was already sitting with a group of children on a long bench that swung and shook like a drunken Gentile…
My rebe had no face. He was purely beard. The hair grew wildly and had all kinds of colors. Here a bunch of ash-gray, here a bunch of brownish-black hair, woven through with a sparkling silver thread. His eyebrows were as red as fire.
From this bunch protruded a red, pointy nose, and over the little nose, two little holes, with which he looked at his world, which was probably no bigger than the kheyder.
***
“Tell me, little girl, what is this?”
“An alef.”6
“Don’t be shy, louder!”
“An alef.”
I was not shy, but I was annoyed that I had to repeat the “alef” perhaps fifty times—what use was it? I knew right away that it was an alef.
But the rebe was a stubborn man. Perhaps fifty times I repeated the alef, until I was sick of it. The same thing happened with the “beys” and “giml”. Oh, if only I had had the strength then. I would tear up my rebe!
It was dark as Egypt in there, the ceiling was torn as though it had been bombarded by cannons. Spiderwebs—here, there, everywhere. From the gray walls streamed sweat, one drop after another slid down and fell on the half-rotten floor. I never saw such weeping walls later in my life.
…There was a dresser, perhaps from Sobieski’s times,7 and two brass lights on the dresser coated in the mold of eternity, “adorned” with pieces of wax from melted candles. … A red, threadbare blanket on the seat of the chair covered a flattened and careworn cushion, upon which the rebe probably rested his sick bones after a hard day of work.
The melody with which the rebe taught the children drew itself out monotonously, it throbbed with unhappiness, and it was only when the rebe “treated” the student with the whip that the kheyder became a bit livelier.
The rebe taught well, but he could beat us even better.
Something trivial, a foolish thing, happened. While the rebe was going over the sedre8 of the week with a boy, another girl tied a tail of the rebe’s coat to the chair leg. I swear to you that the other girl did this, and not me. I only laughed loudly. When the rebe suddenly stood up from his chair, and wanted to run with his whip to one of the boys on the end of the bench, his chair dragged after his coat, and when he turned to see what was dragging behind him, he fell, poor thing, over the chair.
When he stood up and untied the tail of his coat from the chair, I saw before me a strange figure. The heap of hair spun upon his throat here and there, the whip in his hand trembled, his splayed feet shook from anger, and in the first moment, I didn’t know what to do.
I laughed the greatest laughter.
I don’t need to tell you what happened later, but believe me, that the beating did not hurt me, but I could not get over the shame in my heart. It was an unworthy violation on the rebe’s part, and I couldn’t forgive him.
Have you ever heard of this, that a complete stranger should lift up my dress and hit me so murderously for—why? You are, after all, impartial people—so, I ask you: Why?
March 25, 1925
I can sing…
Friday night, when my father finished singing zmires and saying the prayer after eating, such a discussion almost always transpired in our house.
“What do you say, Zalmen, should we perhaps take a walk in the Jesuit Garden?”
“No,” answered my father. “Somehow I don’t feel like moving from my spot. I’m so tired.”
“Yes, you’re certainly right, Zalmen, I’m tired, too”.
A minute later:
“If you do want to go, Bashe, I’ll come along, but not for more than an hour. We’ll drink a glass of beer and go home…:
“As though I had nothing to do but dress myself up for a glass of beer,” answered my mother.
My father was silent, but a minute later my mother responded.
“You know what, Zalmen, if you’re going to be stubborn, there’s no use. Here I go, putting on another dress….”
And once—indeed it was on a Friday night—my fate was decided in the Jesuit Garden….that I must go on the stage. The decision was approved by my mother, by my father, and by a certain Mrs. Shapiro.
Mrs. Shapiro was perhaps entirely responsible for that which Bertha Kalich is an actress, and I always remember her fondly. She was a dear woman, a heartfelt person, though a little too forward-thinking for my parents. She lived with us as a neighbor, and her husband was the first violinist in the Lviv music society “Harmonia.” Besides being radical in her worldview, she was able to win my mother’s friendship. Mrs. Shapiro had no children, and perhaps for that reason she loved me so fiercely. She was the pioneer of the women’s rights movement in Lviv, and she later became the midwife-doctor in the city.
One Friday, all four of us went to the Jesuit Garden. My father, my mother, Mrs. Shapiro and me. …We were all sitting on a bench. A fifth person was sitting near us, an older man with a large mustache. He sat there like a mummy, learning on a big walking stick, listening to the music.
I sang back every aria that the music played… I had a beautiful, melodic voice, and I only had to open my mouth, and it sang out of me. No other girl among my neighbors could sing like me, nor dance, nor pose—of course not.
Today, I am sure that the older gentleman with the big mustache…enjoyed my singing more than the music itself…He stopped my father, and told him that he had to send the child, me, that is, to study. The child is a great talent. The entire world will recognize her.
My father thanked the old gentlemen for his good advice, and when he recounted to my mother and Mrs. Shapiro what the old man had said, Mrs. Shapiro jumped for joy. That is after all what she has been claiming! She’s been yelling about this for a long time. Beylkele’s voice is a gift from God, and neglecting such a gift from God is a sin.
That night, Mrs. Shapiro insisted to my parents, like she did all the time, that they should do something about this matter. They must let me study. I must grow up to be a great prima donna, a great actress. It will be, she said, an honor for my parents, for the entire city. Beykele Kalakh (we were called Kalakh) will be known throughout the world.
You’ll see, you’ll see. Never, I swear to you, did my mother listen to Mrs. Shapiro with such attention as that night. My father also did not say anything against it.
Yes, my mother said. She needs first to go to school…
–What does that have to do with it? Answered Mrs. Shapiro. School is school and music is music.
Well, never mind, we’ll see, added my father.
Soon Dr. Kalakh will come from Brody, and we’ll talk it over. What he says, that’s what we’ll do.
***
When I lay down in bed that Friday night, I couldn’t sleep. For a while, I listened to my father discussing with my mother about conservatory, theater, music…Their speech slowly put me to sleep and I dreamed beautiful but foolish dreams…
March 28, 1925
My aristocratic uncle
All the Jews have Passover once a year; we had two Passovers…
Truly, at our place it looked like the eve of Passover, when my uncle let us know that he was coming. We turned over the furniture, cleaned and scoured, decorated the rooms, my mother gave up her work almost completely, and just went around thinking about what kinds of meals to prepare for this grand guest.
Never mind that one had to make chopped onions with livers, this she knew. Uncle Felix really loved this particular dish. But at home, where his aristocratic wife presided, the regiment doctor did not even dare to dream of such a food; in the society he moved about in, one also did not look kindly upon chopped onions with livers. So, he really missed it all year, and he only refreshed himself when he came to us in Lviv.
Little of his Jewish identity remained beyond his love for chopped onions. He was a proud Austrian citizen and believed that Jews should assimilate. He grew up under the strict guidance of my religious grandfather; nonetheless he set out on another path, and he succeeded in becoming a big shot for Franz Josef and took from the world what he deserved.
My father, his brother, was another sort of person. He walked in the footsteps of my grandfather…He served God, tied brushes at the factory, played the violin from time to time, and awaited the Messiah. He never wanted to turn the world upside down…
Despite that, he greatly respected his older brother, the regiment doctor. Not only did he consider his opinions, but he didn’t do anything important without my uncle’s agreement.
Somehow we were all rendered speechless when my uncle showed up. He himself was friendly, but uncomfortable. First of all, the man spoke German, and as well as my father knew the German language, he nonetheless stuttered, and my mother’s tongue was also not at home. When Herr Dr. Kalakh spoke, only my grandfather was happy. He spoke Yiddish with his son and was not even ashamed. My uncle answered him in mistake-filled German that he called Yiddish. Even the regiment doctor had respect for my grandfather, so in his honor, he had to go wash his hands before eating bread…
It didn’t take long for the discussion to focus on me. My father wanted to know, first of all, if they should send me to the Czacki shule, which was an unofficial Jewish school, or to the “Saint Anne’s,” which was a Christian institution. My mother and father naturally were drawn to the Czacki school, but my uncle gave them such a look, that they immediately “realized” that the Christian school was better. And when they started speaking of letting me study singing, my uncle nearly jumped up in anger.
“What?!!” he yelled. “Maybe you want yet to make a Yiddish prima donna out of her, too?”
I really can’t tell you how much sarcasm lay in the words “Yiddish prima donna.”
Note: As a young teenager, Bertha Kalich attended the Lviv Conservatory and at thirteen, joined the chorus at the Skarbek Polish theatre. There, she met Regina Prager and Jacob-Ber Gimpel, and was one of Gimpel’s first actresses in his Yiddish theatre in Lviv, established in 1889. She performed throughout Eastern Europe. She married Leopold Spachner and for a time retired from the stage. In the following episodes, she describes her early marriage and a crisis that occurred when her legendarily jealous husband learned of a strong rival for her love.
- Ikh vil nit geyn in kheyder, the title of a well-known song by Sholem Aleichem, with music by Joseph Cherniavsky. ↩︎
- Mirele Efros is a play by Jacob Gordin (1853 –1909), in which the titular character is also known as the ‘Jewish Queer Lear.” ↩︎
- Traditional Jewish school where small children learn the Hebrew alphabet and other rudiments of Jewish religious learning. ↩︎
- The Aramaic prayer Kadish is traditionally recited by a son for a deceased parent. ↩︎
- The Hasidic rabbi or teacher. ↩︎
- Alef, first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, followed by beys and giml. ↩︎
- Very old; the historical figure Jan III Sobieski (1629-1696) was, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania ↩︎
- Weekly Torah portion. ↩︎
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