Digital Yiddish Theatre Project

Recent Posts

Nov 07, 2021

Women on the Yiddish Stage: Primary Sources

Alyssa Quint, Amanda (Miryem-Khaye) Seigel

We’re pleased to launch Women on the Yiddish Stage: Primary Sources.

Jun 20, 2022

How I Got Five Thousand Dollars from a Theatre Customer

Menashe Skulnik, Zachary Baker

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

Ri J. Turner, Khine Braginskaya

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

Jan 20, 2022

Tea Arciszewska: Remembering the Modernist Playwright on Her Sixtieth Yortsayt

Sonia Gollance

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

Dec 07, 2021

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

Bella Bellarina-Rubinlicht, Sandra Chiritescu

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.

Nov 07, 2021

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

Tsipe Abelman

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

Oct 19, 2021

Interview with Nahma Sandrow, translator and editor

Joel Berkowitz

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

Aug 23, 2021

Khonen in Drag: Cross-Dressing in Two Productions of The Dybbuk during the 1920s (Plus, a Review of One of These Productions)

Zachary Baker

What was the “trouser role”?

Long Form

Jun 29, 2021

A Timeline of Yiddish Drag

The Digital Yiddish Theatre Project

Yiddish theatre…the gayest theater?

Jun 24, 2021

A Year of Yiddish Theatre in Covid: A Wrap Up?

Faith Jones

In the past year, we’ve covered a number of COVID-era online productions, from drag, to Yiddish-inspired new plays, to a re-mounted classic, to long-ignored material and more long-ignored material.

Jun 21, 2021

The Bird of COVID

Faith Jones

Chava Rosenfarb’s Der foygl fun geto (The Bird of the Ghetto) had its Yiddish-language premiere April 18 to 22, on the Folksbiene’s video channel.

Jun 17, 2021

Interview: Sabina Brukner on the Folksbiene’s Yiddish Women Playwrights Festival

Sonia Gollance

The National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene recently launched its Yiddish Women Playwrights Festival with a reading of Chava Rosenfarb’s drama of the Vilna Ghetto, Der foygl fun geto.