Esther Rachel Kamińska

Esther Rachel Kamińska (* 1870 in Porosowo ; † 1925 in Warsaw ; actually Esther Rachel Halpern ) was a Polish - Jewish actress .

Life

Esther Rachel Kamińska was born as Esther Rachel Halpern in Porosowo , near Waukawysk (now Belarus ), in 1870 .

The daughter of a cantor made her acting debut on the stage in Warsaw in 1888 and devoted herself entirely to theater work after the death of her parents. The actress was discovered in a shtetl by her future husband Abraham Isaak Kamiński (1867–1918), who had founded his own traveling theater at the age of twenty. From 1893 Esther Rachel Kamińska appeared together with her husband in Warsaw and the Polish provinces and mainly acted in operettas . Success as an actress came a few years later, when she shone in more serious plays by the naturalists Jacob Gordin , Henrik Ibsen and Hermann Sudermann . Kamińska toured Russia , performed in the USA from 1909 to 1911 and in London and Paris in 1913, and was a permanent member of the famous Yiddish Vilnius theater group , which toured across Europe. Esther Rachel Kamińska's play in Jacob Gordin's play Mirele Efros , published in 1899, was particularly noteworthy . In the drama she plays the title role, an old Jewish matriarch who is estranged from her family. She also played this part in the Yiddish silent film of the same name by Andrzej Marek from 1912, her debut on the screen. A year later, the Russian silent film drama The Slaughter followed, directed by her husband . From 1914 Albert Isaak Kamiński had his own theater in Warsaw, the Kamiński Theater (in the Tatra Panorama Rotunda ), where works by Molière , Friedrich Schiller and Maxim Gorki were performed alongside pieces by Yiddish authors . In 1921 Esther Rachel Kamińska, whose repertoire also included pieces by William Shakespeare , Anton Chekhov and George Bernard Shaw , founded the Yiddish Art Theater in Warsaw with Sigmund Turkow and Diana Blumenfeld, among others .

Esther Rachel Kamińska's grave

The actress, who was compared to Sarah Bernhardt during her lifetime and referred to as the “Yiddish Duse” based on the famous Italian actress Eleonora Duse , is considered the “mother of Yiddish theater” . She died in Warsaw in 1925 at the age of only 55 and was buried in the Powązki cemetery there , where her grave can still be visited today. Esther Rachel Kamińska's marriage to Albert Isaak Kamiński gave birth to the daughters Regina, Ida (1899–1980) and the son Josef (1903–1972). While Josef Kamiński was to pursue a successful career as a composer, the daughters followed in their mother's footsteps and also switched to acting. Ida Kamińska was able to build on her mother's success as an actress and after the Second World War she founded the State Jewish Theater in Warsaw , which bears Esther Rachel Kamińska's name. Her niece was the Yiddish actress Dina Halpern (1909–1989), well-known in the USA , and her granddaughter was the actress Ruth Kamińska (1920–2005), well-known in Poland .

Filmography

• 1912: Mirele Efros
• 1913: The Slaughter
• 1924: Tkies khaf

literature

• Kamińska, Esther Rachel: Briv . Vilna: Farlag fun B. Kletskin, 1927 (Yiddish edition)
• Turkow-Grudberg, Isaac: Di mame Ester-Rohel . Varshe: Farlag "Yidish Bukh", 1953 (Yiddish edition)
• Zylbercweig, Zalmen: Divelt fun Ester Rohl Kaminska . Mexico: O. fg., 1969 (Yiddish edition)
• Mirosława M. Bułat: Kaminski Theater. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 3: He-Lu. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02503-6 , pp. 313-316.

Web links

• Esther Rachel Kaminska in the Internet Movie Database (English)