Yiddish Theatre

Joel Berkowitz is Assistant Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at the State University of New York at Albany. He previously taught Yiddish literature at the University of Oxford and English language and literature at the City University of New York. He is the author of Shakespeare on the American Yiddish Stage, as well as a number of scholarly articles on Yiddish theatre and drama.

‘Carefully and lovingly edited . . . represents a genuinely heroic effort at elevating a genre . . . The scholarship is impeccable, and the contributors all serious scholars.’ S. Gittleman, Choice

• Note on Transliteration and Orthography List of Plates List of Tables Introduction: Writing the History of the Yiddish Theatre JOEL BERKOWITZ I Purimshpil 1. The ‘Low’ Culture of the Purimshpil AHUVA BELKIN II Repertoire 2. Romanticism and the Yiddish Theatre NAHMA SANDROW 3. Jewish Plays on the Russian Stage: Moscow and St Petersburg, 1905–1917 BARBARA HENRY 4. The Text of Goldfaden’s Di kishefmakherin and the Operetta Tradition PAOLA BERTOLONE 5. Shulamis and Bar kokhba: Renewed Jewish Role Models in Goldfaden and Halkin SETH L. WOLITZ III Regional Centres 6. Yiddish Theatre in Vienna, 1880–1938 BRIGITTE DALINGER 7. Stories in Song: The Melo-deklamatsyes of Joseph Markovitsh DAVID MAZOWER 8. From Goldfaden to Goldfaden in Cracow’s Jewish Theatres MIROSLAWA M. BUWAT IV Censorship 9. ‘Exit, Pursued by a Bear’: Russian Administrators and the Ban on Yiddish Theatre in Imperial Russia JOHN KLIER 10. The Censorship of Sholem Asch’s Got fun nekome, London, 1946 LEONARD PRAGER V. Criticism 11. The Child Who Wouldn’t Grow Up: Yiddish Theatre and its Critics NINA WARNKE Notes on Contributors Bibliography Index