Subjects

Yiddish theatre and drama have explored all of the major themes and issues relating to the Jewish experience from medieval times to the present.


June 20, 2022

How I Got Five Thousand Dollars from a Theatre Customer

In his memoirs, Menashe Skulnik recalled the many years when he performed in cities outside of New York – including six years in Philadelphia, which he considered to be a theatrical purgatory.
May 12, 2022

Khine Braginskaya: The Earliest Days of the Yiddish Theatre in Russia

Khine Braginskaya’s career, much like the career of her husband Avrom Fishzon, reflected almost all of the Yiddish theatre’s historical chapters.
January 20, 2022

Tea Arciszewska: Remembering the Modernist Playwright on Her Sixtieth Yortsayt

Sixty years ago thoday, the Yiddish playwright, actress, theatre company founder, and salonnière Tea Arciszewska (c. 1890 – 1962) died in Paris.
December 7, 2021

My Path to the Yiddish Theatre: David Edelstadt’s Revolutionary Recitation

Bella Bellarina was born in Warsaw on July 15, 1898, into the legendary Rubinlicht family, known for the intellectual and cultural accomplishments of its worldly children.
December 6, 2021

“Permit New Actors on the Stage?”: A 1905 Protest Letter by Tsipe Abelman

Tsipe (Tsipoyre) Abelman trained as a factory seamstress before performing in popular musical works on the Yiddish stage.
October 19, 2021

Interview with Nahma Sandrow, translator and editor

Joel Berkowitz and Nahma Sandrow in conversation about her new anthology, Yiddish Plays for Reading and Performance.