Yiddish theater

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"Tewje the Milkman" by Scholem Alejchem , Kraków Jewish Theater
Yiddish theater with Molly Picon and Jacob Adler in New York

The Yiddish theater is an important part of the Jewish culture, especially in East Central Europe and the Americas.

history

Beginnings

Since the emergence of Yiddish there have probably also been theatrical performances, at Purim plays or on other occasions, but there are no written sources about it.

Traveling folk singers are known from the 19th century, such as the Broder singers who performed in inns and wine cellars.

By 1830 there were 19 Yiddish amateur theaters in and around Warsaw . There was also at least one traveling theater in Galicia . In 1854 two students from the rabbinical seminary in Zhitomir in the Volhynian governorate played in a Yiddish play. In 1862 Abraham Goldfaden was involved in a theater performance in the same seminar.

Goldfaden went to Iasi in Romania and founded his own theater there in 1876. This is considered to be the beginning of modern Yiddish theater. He wrote numerous dramas. Actors like Israel Grodner and Sigmund Mogulescu and authors like Moses Horowitz gathered around Goldfaden . A Yiddish theater performance was mentioned in Bucharest in 1876.

Grodner and later Horowitz founded their own theater groups. Jizchak Leib Perez , Abraham Kamiński , Abraham Alter Fiszzon , Jacob Adler and others moved with their own theaters through the Yiddish-speaking areas of Austria, the Russian Empire (including Poland) and Romania.

Pieces by Goldfaden, Karl Gutzkow ( Uriel Acosta ), Salomon Ettinger , Joseph Latiner and others were played. Odessa has been a center of Yiddish theater since the late 1870s.

Spread to Western Europe and the USA

In 1883, theatrical performances in the Yiddish language were banned in the Russian Empire. Many actors went to London or Paris and the USA . The most important author there was Jacob Gordin , who created numerous contemporary dramas and Yiddish adaptations of works of world literature.

In Vienna there were performances in Viennese Yiddish, Viennese with many Yiddish formulations, etc. a. from 1889 by the Orpheum in Budapest . In 1896 the Herrnfeld brothers founded a Jewish dialect theater in Berlin . In 1901 the first Yiddish theater was built in Buenos Aires .

Mostly entertainment theaters with revues , vaudeville , operettas , etc. listed.

Further development in Eastern Europe

In 1904 the ban on Yiddish theater in Russia was lifted.

Abraham Kamiński and Andrzej Marek made the first Yiddish silent films in Warsaw since 1911. In 1914, Kamiński founded the first permanent Yiddish theater in Warsaw. In 1916 the Vilnius Troupe and the Habima Theater were established in Moscow , which became very popular through many guest performances in Western Europe and the USA.

The heyday of Yiddish theater

The 1920s and 1930s were the heyday of Yiddish theater in Europe and the United States. Numerous Yiddish theaters were built in Warsaw, Łódź , Bucharest , Vienna and Berlin . The State Jewish Chamber Theater was founded in Moscow in 1920 .

In New York , there were a total of 15 Yiddish theaters in the Yiddish Theater District on the Lower East Side.

In the Soviet Union Yiddish theaters a. a. in Lviv (Lemberg), Tashkent , Birobidzhan and Frunze after 1930.

In the USA and Poland, many Yiddish films were made with ensembles there, since 1930 as sound films.

Yiddish theater in Poland ended in 1939, and many actors went to Western Europe, the USA or the Soviet Union. In 1941 the theater there was evacuated to Tashkent.

New beginnings

Since 1946, Yiddish theaters have sprung up again in East Central Europe. In 1949 the Moscow theater was closed. In 1950, a State Jewish Theater was founded in Bucharest . In Western Europe and America, new Yiddish theaters were created by emigrants, a.o. a. in Amsterdam ( LiLaLo ) and Montreal ( Dora Wasserman Theater ).

present

Yiddish theaters are today

Plays

Repeated plays

Remarks

  1. ↑ Bercovici 1998, 18
  2. ↑ in Berdychiv
  3. ↑ Serkele of Salomon Ettinger , Bercovici 1998. Brigitte Dalinger: Verloschene stars. History of the Jewish Theater in Vienna . Vienna 1998, p. 25
  4. ↑ cf. List of Jewish theaters

literature