Yiddish Theater and Female Actresses

Yiddish Theater emerged truly emerged well within the nineteenth century, and as early as the 1830's, different Yiddish plays were staged in Warsaw, and these plays tackled biblical themes and plots. There is evidence that between 1860 and 1870, Yiddish plays were performed in a permanent Jewish Theater in Warsaw. However, Modern Yiddish Theater truly began with the work of Avrom Goldfadn who has been canonized as the "Father of Yiddish Theater". Goldfadn’s legacy was the creation of a theatrical tradition. Fifty years after their debut, Goldfadn’s plays were still being staged in their original versions. In 1883 Tzarist authorities began to restrict the staging of Yiddish plays, so over the following two decades, Yiddish actors, directors, and playwrights emigrated from Eastern Europe. London, New York, and Paris became the new centers for Yiddish Theater. Yet Yiddish theater survived in Eastern Europe because of the work of traveling companies such as the Vilna Troupe and the Warsaw Yiddish Art Troupe.

Yiddish Theater icons such as Esther-Rohkl Kaminska and her daughter Ida Kaminska created Russian Yiddish touring companies that extended to Warsaw, and new playwrights emerged including the repertoire's of Jacob Gordin, Dovid Pinski, and Sholem Aleichem. During the years prior to World War I and even after it, Jewish mass audiences continued to flock to the older Yiddish repertoire, especially of the American variety. After World war I, the Vilner troupe really became the face of Yiddish Theater as this troupe moved from the stages in Warsaw to other cities and towns of Eastern Europe, and into the repertoires of Yiddish Companies throughout the world. Despite its increasing maturity, there remained significant differences between Yiddish dramatic theater and its non-Jewish counterparts. First of all, Yiddish theater outside the Soviet Union shared in the permanent economic crisis common to all Yiddish cultural institutions. Yiddish theater also attracted a different type of audience than non-Yiddish theater. World War II and the Holocaust put an end to the centuries-old Jewish civilization of Eastern Europe in all its diversity. Yiddish theater was no exception; the overwhelming majority of its creators and audiences were murdered by the Nazis. But Jewish theater continued, astonishingly, even amid the destruction and also managed a kind of afterlife in postwar Poland and Romania.

The data used is a collection of 60 actresses who have performed in Yiddish Theater in various Yiddish Theater Troupes and geographical locations. The data was collected from a number of Jewish Archives and online databases, such as the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, the Jewish Women's Archive, the Digital Yiddish Theater Project, as well as some books from the Brandeis University Library. The data is a spreadsheet of information that contains the actresses name, as well as alliases and alternative spellings, the date they were born or when they first began their performance career, the place attributed to that date, and then a short biography. This data has been formed into a map, visualizing the different areas that these women were born and/or performed. If this project were to continue or if there was more time to complete research, the dataset would have been larger with more information about these actresses. For further exploration on this topic, I would look through the Digital Yiddish Theater Project, as well as the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Yiddish Book Center website.

The dots contain the names of each Yiddish actress in the data set

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uszjLWp__Be5kvkq6UHYR-yBDhSwjXGJ/edit?usp=share_link&ouid=107740735822237649445&rtpof=true&sd=true

-To explore women's impact on the history of Yiddish Theater

-To show how women increased the popularity and joy of Yiddish Theater with stage talent

-To highlight women's perspectives on Jewish history through Yiddish culture and Yiddish langauge.

https://web.uwm.edu/yiddish-stage/people

https://yivoencyclopedia.org

https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/collections

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia

https://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/yt/lex-biography.htm#L

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WISeJgUuL34