\u2026 once Yiddish has taken hold of you and moved you\u2014and Yiddish is everything, the words, the Chasidic melody, and the essential character of this Eastern European Jewish actor himself\u2014you will have forgotten your former reserve. Then you will come to feel the true unity of Yiddish, and so strongly that it will frighten you, yet it will no longer be fear of Yiddish but of yourselves.<\/em>*<\/p>\nFranz Kafka<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Kafka had become enamored of Yiddish theatre in May 1910; by the time a company of Yiddish actors from Lemberg (Lviv) came to Prague a year later, they would feature prominently in Kafka\u2019s life, dreams, and diaries. This article looks at the lives of these Yiddish actors, who sparked a fevered enthusiasm for Jewish theatre in one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, and left significant traces on short stories like The Judgment <\/em>and The Metamorphosis<\/em>, and on the novels The Trial<\/em> and The Castle<\/em>.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Between September 1911 and January 1912, the small Yiddish theatre company that entranced Kafka performed at the Caf\u00e9 Savoy (now the Katr Restaurant on V\u011bze\u0148sk\u00e1 Street) in Prague, not far from the Old Town Square. In a cramped room of the restaurant, among the dining tables, the troupe performed plays by Avrom Goldfaden<\/a>, Jacob Gordin<\/a>, Joseph Lateiner, Avrom Mikhl Sharkansky<\/a>, Sigmund Feinman<\/a>, and Moyshe Richter, preceded by a variety of Yiddish songs, couplets, and jokes. The audience was noisy and unrefined, and Kafka found the actors \u201cfull of the melody\u201d of the Yiddish songs that caught \u201chold of every person\u201d in the audience(Diaries<\/em>, October 6, 1911).The Lemberg Company included S\u00fcsskind Klug and his wife Flora (Goldberg) Klug, Emanuel and Mania Tschissik, Jizchak L\u00f6wy, Mano Pipes, R. Pipes, and Sami Urich. They presented themselves as the \u201cGerman-Jewish Company from Lemberg,\u201d even though not all the actors were from Lemberg, or \u201cGerman.\u201d Lemberg had prestige, since the first permanent Yiddish theatre in Europe was founded there. Great actors like Bertha Kalich<\/a> and many others who came to fame in a variety of central European theatres came from this Galician city. Yiddish actors from Lemberg also enjoyed fame overseas, because their melodies were recorded using the latest in musical technology, the 78 rpm record, which reached the height of its popularity in the 1920s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n S\u00fcsskind Klug and Flora Goldberg Klug (Florence Klug)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n S\u00fcsskind Klug was born in Brody, Poland (now Ukraine) in 1874. In Poland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he probably acted in a company formed by a Broder zinger<\/a><\/em>, the generic name for the popular Yiddish singers who laid the foundations of modern Yiddish theatre many years before Goldfaden. Flora Goldberg was born in 1886 in Sierpc, a Polish city under Russian rule. She and S\u00fcsskind met in London and married in 1902 at the Fieldgate Street Synagogue when Flora was only sixteen, a fact that Kafka noted in his diaries. The Klugs spent time in Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig, Carlsbad, and Budapest, their home when not on tour. Flora was a singer and character actor. Of her performance as a young Hasid, Kafka noted:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMrs. Klug, \u2018male impersonator.\u2019 In a caftan, short black trousers, white stockings, from the black shirt a thin white woolen waistcoat emerges that is held in front at the throat by a knot and then flares into a wide, loose, long, spreading collar. On her head, confining her woman\u2019s hair but necessary anyhow and worn by her husband as well, a dark, brimless skullcap, over it a large, soft black hat with a turned-up brim <\/em>(Diaries<\/em>, October 5, 1911).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kafka thought that Flora Klug\u2019s Hasidic characters had a satirical edge, as portraits of a people \u201cset apart\u201d from the world outside, but deeply immersed in Jewish life and community, who \u201csee clearly to the core the relationship of all the members of the community.\u201d Like Sholem Aleichem\u2019s luftmentshn<\/a><\/em>, they \u201chaven\u2019t the slightest specific gravity but must bounce right back up in the air\u201d(Diaries<\/em>, October 5, 1911). Newspaper reviews noted that Flora Klug had an explosive vitality that captivated audiences. Her melodies and Yiddish phrases made Kafka feel, for the first time, part of a larger Jewish family, \u201c\u2026because she is a Jew, [she] draws us listeners to her because we are Jews, without any longing for or curiosity about Christians\u201d<\/em> (Diaries<\/em>, October 5, 1911).<\/p>\n\n\n\n During World War I, the Klugs returned to Prague, and from September 1916 to April 1917, they performed at the Hotel Schwan, a short walk from Kafka’s office. In Prague they formed a company called the \u201cJewish-Polish Orfeum,\u201d with S\u00fcsskind as manager, and Flora in leading female roles. In 1920, S\u00fcsskind Klug died in Budapest, and the following year Flora emigrated with their children to New York. She settled in the Bronx and acted there with many companies under the name Florence Klug. In 1925, she was featured in Betty Kenig’s company’s production of Goldfaden’s Akeydes Yitskhok <\/em>(The Sacrifice of Isaac), and by 1931, Florence Klug was with Charles Goldstein’s “European Yiddish Art Troupe.” In 1933, she performed as a singer at the Thomashefsky<\/a> International Music Hall on Freeman Street in the Bronx. In the early fifties, Florence moved to California with her third husband, Isadore Vernick, a Yiddish actor and director from Odessa. Vernick lived in Hollywood and counted Paul Muni and Bela Lugosi among his friends. Florence died in May 1954 after a long life of incredible adventure; she overcame difficulties of all kinds, and inspired Kafka to say, \u201cListening to her always lively singing does nothing less than prove the solidity of the world, which is what I need, after all\u201d (Diaries<\/em>, 19 December 1911). On her grave in the small cemetery of Commerce, California, an inscription reads: “A trouper to the End.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Emanuel and Mania Tschissik<\/strong> (Emanuel Cy\u017cyk and Millie or Amalie Chissick)<\/p>\n\n\n\n On November 6, 1911 Kafka sat beside Mania Tschissik at the Caf\u00e9 Savoy. He had seen her perform in Goldfaden\u2019s Shulamis<\/em> and Bar Kokhba<\/em>, but in the caf\u00e9 he tried not to glance Tschissik\u2019s way, \u201cFor that would have meant that I loved her\u201d (Diaries<\/em>, November 7, 1911). Kafka was enraptured with her beauty and her voice, but his passion for Mrs. Tschissik had to be channeled into the bouquet of roses that he sent as a sign of devotion. In his diaries, Mania Tschissik becomes an elusive and surreal figure, \u201cshe reminded me vaguely of hybrid beings like mermaids, sirens, centaurs\u201d(Diaries<\/em>, December 19, 1911).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mania Tschissik (n\u00e9e Ferstenfeld) was born in Cz\u0119stochowa, Poland around 1881. Her father owned a pub frequented by touring Yiddish actors, and it was there that she met Emanuel Tschissik, an actor, singer, playwright, and Yiddish songwriter. Emanuel was born in Warsaw in 1867 and his father, Binem Badchen, had joined one of the early Yiddish theatre companies. Mania and Emanuel eloped and moved to London. When war broke out in 1914, Emanuel was in Prague, where he performed with the Klugs. In the 1920s, he went to Paris where he earned a living selling his song lyrics. He died in a nursing home in Paris in 1947. Mania returned to London in 1914 and continued to perform in Yiddish as Millie Chissick. For many years the public at the Pavilion Theatre and the Grand Palais applauded her as a perfect interpreter of Yiddish classics. She died at the age of 95 in September 1976.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jizchak L\u00f6wy (Jacques Levi)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The performance that Kafka introduced at the Jewish Town Hall was by Isaac Meir Levi, aka Jizchak L\u00f6wy\/Jacques Levi\/Jack Lewi, an actor with whom the writer had developed a close friendship.2<\/a><\/sup> L\u00f6wy was the most complex and tormented personality of the Lemberg Company. His extraordinary expressive force struck Kafka:<\/p>\n\n\n\n He steps forward only a little, opens his eyes wide, plucks at his straight black coat with his absent-minded left hand and holds the right out to us, open and large. And we are supposed, even if we are not gripped, to acknowledge that he is gripped and to explain to him how the misfortune, which has been described, was possible<\/em> (Diaries<\/em>, January 7, 1912).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The actor\u2019s “unquenchable” and “infectious fire” shook Kafka, who saw an alter-ego in L\u00f6wy, an artist who was often stymied and isolated by his anxieties.3<\/a><\/sup> For Kafka, L\u00f6wy became an “indispensable friend,” but one whose visits infuriated Kafka’s father, who reminded his son that “Whoever lies down with dogs gets up with bugs” (Diaries<\/em>, November 3, 1911). Kafka may have had these words in mind one year later in 1912, when he began writing The<\/em> Metamorphosis<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n L\u00f6wy was born Isaac Meir Levi in Warsaw in 1887 to a wealthy Hasidic family. He attended kheyder<\/em> and, for a time, the Ostrog yeshiva in Volhynia.4<\/a><\/sup> A passion for theatre led him to Paris, where in 1906 he made his debut with the nascent Bundist amateur company Fraye yidishe arbeter bine <\/em>(Free Jewish Worker\u2019s Theatre), performing in Chekhov\u2019s one-act comedy Medved\u2019<\/em> (The Bear). L\u00f6wy also spent time acting with Mania Trilling\u2019s company and her husband Herman Berman. In the years that followed, L\u00f6wy performed in Berlin, Vienna, Carlsbad, and Marienbad. In Germany, L\u00f6wy learned Felix Hollaender\u2019s and Max Reinhardt\u2019s theatrical techniques, and in 1913 founded his own company, which soon went bankrupt. To help buttress L\u00f6wy\u2019s fledgling company, Kafka organized a second recital of Yiddish literary texts on June 2, 1913. During World War I, L\u00f6wy lived in Budapest, and was successful on the Yiddish variety stage, performing under the name Jacques Levi. In 1919, he returned to Warsaw, and between 1921 and 1925 L\u00f6wy often toured with Jonas Turkow. In 1924, L\u00f6wy founded a Hebrew-language theatre studio, \u201dHabima,\u201d modeled on the Moscow company of the same name. While in Poland, L\u00f6wy made a name for himself as a performer of monologues. Traveling tirelessly between Warsaw and the Polish provinces, he brought Yiddish and Hebrew literature to the masses, as well as performing Shakespeare, Moli\u00e8re, Schiller, Gogol, Dickens, Poe, Chekhov, and Stefan Zweig. His interpretation of \u201cVer bin ikh?\u201d (Who am I?), based on I. L. Peretz\u2019s story \u201cDer meshugener batlen\u201d (The Mad Talmudist), was unforgettable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the 1930s, L\u00f6wy wrote for the Warsaw-based Yiddish newspaper Unzer ekspres<\/a><\/em> and during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, he fondly remembered Prague and his friend Franz Kafka, who had died of tuberculosis fifteen years earlier.5<\/a><\/sup> Isaac Bashevis Singer knew L\u00f6wy in Warsaw and wrote a poignant portrait of him in the short story \u201cA Friend of Kafka.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the war, L\u00f6wy was interned in the Warsaw Ghetto. On December 6, 1940, he returned to acting at the ghetto\u2019s Eldorado Theatre in the comedy In reydl<\/em> (In a circle). He appeared in public for the last time on July 18, 1942, interpreting songs from the Book of Job and other Biblical texts. He and his parents were deported to Treblinka in August, 1942.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zalmen and Basia (Sauber) Liebgold<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Zalmen and Basia Liebgold were character actors with the Lemberg company; both were excellent singers, too. Zalmen Liebgold was born in Krak\u00f3w in 1875; Basia Sauber in Przemy\u015bl around 1890. They were married in 1908 and lived for many years in Austria, Romania, Slovakia, and Bohemia. In the 1930s, the Liebgolds lived in Warsaw, where Zalmen managed a theatre, in which Basia starred with their son, Leon, who would later enjoy success in films like Der dybbuk<\/a> <\/em>and Yidl mitn fidl<\/a>. <\/em>Basia and Zalmen Liebgold were interned in the Tarnow ghetto<\/a> and murdered in Treblinka in 1942. Leon Liebgold was in the U.S. when the war broke out. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was president of the Hebrew Actors\u2019 Union and of the Yiddish Theatrical Alliance. He died in 1993 in New Hope, PA. Among his papers are these photographs of his parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These are rare and valuable images of the Yiddish theatre that Kafka loved. The small theatres \u2013 cabarets, opera, and operetta companies \u2013 that traveled throughout central Europe may have been poor in material resources, but they were rich in talent. The essence of this theatre was summed up by Jizchak L\u00f6wy with these words: \u201c\u2026 and indeed everything was together here: drama, tragedy, song, comedy, dance, all together – life!\u201d6<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Acknowledgments: I would like to thank the Chissick, Gibson, Klug, Liebgold, and Ronin families for their friendship and for the photographic materials that they have made available, and Amanda (Miryem-Khaye) Seigel. I would also like to thank Bernard Mendelovitch (z”l), who provided tremendous insight into Millie Chissick and her family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n * All diary entries are from Franz Kafka, Diaries 1910-1923<\/em>, edited by Max Brod. Translation by Joseph Kresh (New York: Schocken, 1948).<\/p>\n\n\n\n ** Translated from Italian by Nick Underwood, edited by Barbara Henry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Footnotes<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/yiddish-stage\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/562\/2023\/04\/Florence-Klug-Goldberg.1.webp\")
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