New Book on Jewish Theater in Late USSR
New Book on Jewish Theater in Late USSR
The Tel Aviv publishing house Beit Nelli published Alexander Chernov’s monumental documentary volume “My Jewish Theatre”. The book, written in Russian, with 450 pages of text and about 350 illustrations, is devoted almost entirely to the history of the Moscow Jewish Drama Ensemble (since 1988 – Moscow Jewish Theater Shalom). The ensemble was created in 1962 by a group of former GOSET (Moscow State Jewish Theatre) actors headed by Binyomin (Veniamin) Schwarzer.
Alexander Chernov, who now lives in Israel, belongs to the last generation of Moscow Jewish actors who played in Yiddish. In the past three decades, Russian has become virtually the only language of the Shalom Theater. Excerpts from his book were previously published in Yiddish in the magazine Yidishland. Based on the materials of his book, Alexander Chernov also made the documentary film “Moscow Jewish Drama Ensemble”, which is publicly available on YouTube. This film was shown with Yiddish subtitles on Birobidzhan TV.
On March 8, 2023, the famous Israeli actress, radio host, singer and journalist Leah Shlanger passed away at the age of 91. Her Yiddish radio broadcasts were heard for many decades on the New York radio WEVD and the Israeli station Kol Yisrael. During the last years of her life, she published essays in the American Internet magazine Yiddish Branzhe.
On February 17, the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv hosted a event celebrating one of the most famous veterans of the Israeli theatrical stage, actor and director Shmuel Atzmon (born in 1929). Habima is the famous historical symbol of modern Hebrew theater. The event was named after Atzmon’s 2022 book: Kholem be-Yiddish (Hebrew: “Dreaming in Yiddish”).
Although this theater is strongly associated with Hebrew, the celebration was held in both Hebrew and Yiddish. It included performances by the actors of the Habima Theater, where Shmuel Atzmon performed for many years, and of the Yiddish theater Yiddishpil, which he founded in Tel Aviv in 1987, thereby realizing his own dream of preserving and developing the tradition of Yiddish theatrical art.
On January 8, a new performance was premiered by the Tel Aviv theater Yiddishpil, entitled Zikhroynes fun Motl Peyse dem khazns (The Memories of Mottl, Peysi the Cantor’s Son), based on Sholem Aleichem’s classic novel. The new musical drama was written by the Israeli playwright Rami Rosen (1944-2019) and directed by Yonatan Esterkin, starring two actors, Yaacov (Yankele) Bodo and Yonatan Rosen. The performance is entirely in Yiddish, subtitled in Hebrew and Russian. It will run until February 19.