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In 1907, with the collaboration of Arnsteyn, Esther-Rachel's husband, Avrom-Yitskhok Kaminski, founded the Literary Troupe. This was the first company to turn away from the classics of the operetta composer Avrom Goldfaden, who had laid the theater's cornerstone, and to dedicate itself to the new literary repertoire. The company toured the Russian Empire from 1908 to 1909; its two engagements in St. Petersburg were acclaimed in the Russian liberal press. According to her daughter, Ida, Esther-Rachel eschewed the pathos and posing of many of her contemporaries who were nurtured on the "great repertoire." Instead, she favored acting that was "natural and simple." Performances in the eponymous matriarch roles like Mirele (by Gordin) Serkele (by Ettinger), and Mother Courage (by Bertolt Brecht) led to her canonization by adoring audiences as "Di Mame Ester-Rokhl," the mother of the Yiddish theater.
]]>Perhaps Esther-Rachel's greatest cultural significance was as a pioneer of literary Yiddish theater. In 1905, for instance, when official restrictions waned, she began to perform a new kind of play from the artistic repertoire championed by the Warsaw-based herald of literary Yiddish, Y. L. Peretz (1852-1915). Kaminska staged dramatic works by the most literary dramatists of her day, including Sholem Aleichem (1859-1915), Jacob Gordin, David Pinsky (1872-1959), and the Polish-Jewish writer-director Mark Arnsteyn (Arnsztejn) (1879-1943). She also performed some of the earliest translations into Yiddish of such writers as Maxim Gorky (1868-1936), Stanisław Przybyszewski (1868-1927), and Henryk Ibsen (1828-1906).
In 1907, with the collaboration of Arnsteyn, Esther-Rachel's husband, Avrom-Yitskhok Kaminski, founded the Literary Troupe. This was the first company to turn away from the classics of the operetta composer Avrom Goldfaden, who had laid the theater's cornerstone, and to dedicate itself to the new literary repertoire. The company toured the Russian Empire from 1908 to 1909; its two engagements in St. Petersburg were acclaimed in the Russian liberal press. According to her daughter, Ida, Esther-Rachel eschewed the pathos and posing of many of her contemporaries who were nurtured on the "great repertoire." Instead, she favored acting that was "natural and simple." Performances in the eponymous matriarch roles like Mirele (by Gordin) Serkele (by Ettinger), and Mother Courage (by Bertolt Brecht) led to her canonization by adoring audiences as "Di Mame Ester-Rokhl," the mother of the Yiddish theater.
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In the Polish world, he used the pseudonym Andrzej Marek. His extended family included a Yiddish actress, Roze Arnshteyn, and a Polish poet, Franciszka Arnsztajnowa. He was educated in both Jewish and Polish schools and, at an early age, began publishing literature and criticism in both the Yiddish and Polish press. A disciple of Stanisław Przybyszewski (1868-1927), considered the “high priest” of Polish modernism, Arnshteyn launched his theater career by writing Polish plays on Jewish themes for the Warsaw stage. These included Wieczna bajka (The Eternal Story; 1901), a one-act drama about working-class life; and the popular Pieśniarze (Singers; 1902), based on the legendary life of a nineteenth-century Vilna cantor said to have been destroyed by his success on the Warsaw opera stage. Arnshteyn translated these plays into Yiddish respectively titled Dos eybike lid (The Eternal Song) and Der vilner balebesl (The Little Vilna Householder). They were frequently staged by Yiddish companies throughout the world.
Inspired by a group of theater reformers centered around the Yiddish writer Y. L. Peretz (1852-1915), Arnshteyn in 1905 became the first modern stage director of Yiddish theater. He worked with the Esther-Rachel Kaminska Troupe in its early efforts at “literary” theater as well as with groups of young amateurs who laid the foundations for Yiddish dramatic theater during the interwar period. In those years, Arnshteyn was also a pioneer in the Polish film industry, directing features based on Yiddish dramatic productions.
Between 1912 and 1924, Arnshteyn directed and wrote for Yiddish theater in Russia, England, and the Americas. Returning to Poland, he translated and directed a number of celebrated Yiddish plays for the Polish stage, including S. An-ski’s Der dibek (The Dybbuk) in 1925 and H. Leivik’s (1880-1962) Der goylem (The Golem) in 1928. The latter, produced in the Warsaw Circus Arena, marked the first use of a circular stage in the history of Polish theater. Though critically acclaimed, these productions inspired controversy, including accusations in the Yiddish press that they undermined Yiddish theater and encouraged Jewish assimilation. Apparently stung by these accusations, Arnshteyn withdrew to Łódź, where he worked during the 1930s.
Arnshteyn excelled with the nonverbal elements of stagecraft: the spectacular and the painterly. His career was unique among Polish Jewish artists for its devotion to works in both Yiddish and Polish. His dream, Arnshteyn declared, was to build a bridge between Polish and Jewish societies on the basis of dramatic art.
Information pulled from Michael Steinlauf’s “Polish-Jewish Theater: The Case of Mark Arnshteyn.”
]]>Playwright and theater director Mark Arnshteyn was celebrated in both the Polish and Yiddish-language theater worlds. He was most influential in the world of entertainment with his play Singers, which was the model for the first American talkie, Samuel Raphaelson's (1894-1983) The Jazz Singer.
In the Polish world, he used the pseudonym Andrzej Marek. His extended family included a Yiddish actress, Roze Arnshteyn, and a Polish poet, Franciszka Arnsztajnowa. He was educated in both Jewish and Polish schools and, at an early age, began publishing literature and criticism in both the Yiddish and Polish press. A disciple of Stanisław Przybyszewski (1868-1927), considered the “high priest” of Polish modernism, Arnshteyn launched his theater career by writing Polish plays on Jewish themes for the Warsaw stage. These included Wieczna bajka (The Eternal Story; 1901), a one-act drama about working-class life; and the popular Pieśniarze (Singers; 1902), based on the legendary life of a nineteenth-century Vilna cantor said to have been destroyed by his success on the Warsaw opera stage. Arnshteyn translated these plays into Yiddish respectively titled Dos eybike lid (The Eternal Song) and Der vilner balebesl (The Little Vilna Householder). They were frequently staged by Yiddish companies throughout the world.
Inspired by a group of theater reformers centered around the Yiddish writer Y. L. Peretz (1852-1915), Arnshteyn in 1905 became the first modern stage director of Yiddish theater. He worked with the Esther-Rachel Kaminska Troupe in its early efforts at “literary” theater as well as with groups of young amateurs who laid the foundations for Yiddish dramatic theater during the interwar period. In those years, Arnshteyn was also a pioneer in the Polish film industry, directing features based on Yiddish dramatic productions.
Between 1912 and 1924, Arnshteyn directed and wrote for Yiddish theater in Russia, England, and the Americas. Returning to Poland, he translated and directed a number of celebrated Yiddish plays for the Polish stage, including S. An-ski’s Der dibek (The Dybbuk) in 1925 and H. Leivik’s (1880-1962) Der goylem (The Golem) in 1928. The latter, produced in the Warsaw Circus Arena, marked the first use of a circular stage in the history of Polish theater. Though critically acclaimed, these productions inspired controversy, including accusations in the Yiddish press that they undermined Yiddish theater and encouraged Jewish assimilation. Apparently stung by these accusations, Arnshteyn withdrew to Łódź, where he worked during the 1930s.
Arnshteyn excelled with the nonverbal elements of stagecraft: the spectacular and the painterly. His career was unique among Polish Jewish artists for its devotion to works in both Yiddish and Polish. His dream, Arnshteyn declared, was to build a bridge between Polish and Jewish societies on the basis of dramatic art.
Information pulled from Michael Steinlauf’s “Polish-Jewish Theater: The Case of Mark Arnshteyn.”
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Max Weinreich (1894-1969), one of YIVO's founders, sought to expand the Esther-Rachel Kaminska Theater Museum Collection by soliciting donations of materials from associates around the world, as well as from the general public. In particular, Weinreich sought out ephemera collected by Jacob Shatzky (1893-1956) to the Yiddish Theatrical Museum that he had established a year earlier in New York. Among the items he sent was the letter Shatzky wrote to potential contributors to his soon-defunct museum on "Yiddish Theatrical Museum" letterhead. Weinreich actively cultivated the growth of the museum until the outbreak of World War II.
Above:
This is an undated part of an inventory of the items in the museum. In a 1929 article she published in YIVO's inhouse newspaper Yedies, the theater museum's archivist, Fanny Epstein, boasted an inventory of 1,200 items, of which 400 had been placed on exhibit. The museum would continue expanding over the course of the following ten years, until the outbreak of the war.
]]>
The collections of the Esther-Rachel Kaminska Theater Museum grew considerably in a very short time. In 1927, Ida and Zygmunt donated the museum to YIVO (then known as the Yiddish Scientific Institute and located in Vilna). This led to Yiddish theater becoming one of the institute's important priorities.
Max Weinreich (1894-1969), one of YIVO's founders, sought to expand the Esther-Rachel Kaminska Theater Museum Collection by soliciting donations of materials from associates around the world, as well as from the general public. In particular, Weinreich sought out ephemera collected by Jacob Shatzky (1893-1956) to the Yiddish Theatrical Museum that he had established a year earlier in New York. Among the items he sent was the letter Shatzky wrote to potential contributors to his soon-defunct museum on "Yiddish Theatrical Museum" letterhead. Weinreich actively cultivated the growth of the museum until the outbreak of World War II.
Above:
This is an undated part of an inventory of the items in the museum. In a 1929 article she published in YIVO's inhouse newspaper Yedies, the theater museum's archivist, Fanny Epstein, boasted an inventory of 1,200 items, of which 400 had been placed on exhibit. The museum would continue expanding over the course of the following ten years, until the outbreak of the war.
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In 1918, Weichert settled in Warsaw. Weichert directed plays for leading Yiddish dramatic companies, including the Vilner Trupe. Among his productions were his own dramatization of Sholem Asch’s Sanctification of the Name, 1928 (Kiddush ha-Shem), Shylock (Shaylok, 1929), Arn Zeitlin’s contemporary historical drama City of Jews (Yidn-shtot, 1929), and Moyshe Lifshits’s comedy A Tale of Hershele Ostropolyer (A mayse mit Hershele Ostropolyer, 1930). Focusing on Jewish themes, Weichert’s productions were staged in an epic style that used lighting, music, and stage design to create a coherent theatrical vision. Frequent collaborators were the composer Henekh Kon (1890-1972) and the visionary stage designer Władisław Weintraub (1891-1942) (pictured left).
In the 1920s, Weichert organizeda theater technium in Warsaw. The graduates, idealistic youth committed to political activism and experimental art, became the core of Yung-teater (Young Theater), which Weichert directed from 1932 to 1939. Yung-teater dramatized favorite themes of the international Left, including the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti and the Scottsboro trial. Weichert also produced plays based on Yiddish literary works that were acclaimed in the Yiddish and Polish press for their energy and innovation. Often staged in tight spaces, the productions featured sequences of rapidly changing scenes, briefly illuminated, sometimes simultaneously, and staged on every side of the audience. Through these techniques, the audience was to be provoked to abandon neutrality and act on the plays’ lessons. The company came under continuous government pressure to alter its activist repertoire; in 1937, it was forced to move to Vilna and change its name to Nay-teater (New Theater), under which it performed until 1939.
In an interview published in the newspaper , Weichert commented thus on his acting studio:
In 1929, I renewed the activity of my drama school that had existed from 1922-24, a school that had instructed a gallery of distinguished actors. Thew new studio took on as its task not only prepare actors for Yiddish theater but also a specific Yiddish artistic approach . I assembled thirty young people, mostly working-class. For a three-year period with fanatical devotion, we studied diverse theatrical studies.
Information pulled from Jeffrey Veidlinger’s “From Boston to Mississippi” in Inventing the Modern Yiddish Stage. Eds. Joel Berkowitz and Barbara Henry.
]]>Michał Weichert (Mikhl Vaykhert, pictured in the above article on the right) was a theater director, historian, critic, and communal activist. Born in Podhajce in eastern Galicia and raised in Stanisławów, Weichert received his education at heder and in Polish schools. He attended law and humanities programs at universities in Lwów, Vienna (receiving his J.D. in 1916), and Berlin; in the latter city, he studied avant-garde theater with the preeminent German director Max Reinhardt.
In 1918, Weichert settled in Warsaw. Weichert directed plays for leading Yiddish dramatic companies, including the Vilner Trupe. Among his productions were his own dramatization of Sholem Asch’s Sanctification of the Name, 1928 (Kiddush ha-Shem), Shylock (Shaylok, 1929), Arn Zeitlin’s contemporary historical drama City of Jews (Yidn-shtot, 1929), and Moyshe Lifshits’s comedy A Tale of Hershele Ostropolyer (A mayse mit Hershele Ostropolyer, 1930). Focusing on Jewish themes, Weichert’s productions were staged in an epic style that used lighting, music, and stage design to create a coherent theatrical vision. Frequent collaborators were the composer Henekh Kon (1890-1972) and the visionary stage designer Władisław Weintraub (1891-1942) (pictured left).
In the 1920s, Weichert organizeda theater technium in Warsaw. The graduates, idealistic youth committed to political activism and experimental art, became the core of Yung-teater (Young Theater), which Weichert directed from 1932 to 1939. Yung-teater dramatized favorite themes of the international Left, including the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti and the Scottsboro trial. Weichert also produced plays based on Yiddish literary works that were acclaimed in the Yiddish and Polish press for their energy and innovation. Often staged in tight spaces, the productions featured sequences of rapidly changing scenes, briefly illuminated, sometimes simultaneously, and staged on every side of the audience. Through these techniques, the audience was to be provoked to abandon neutrality and act on the plays’ lessons. The company came under continuous government pressure to alter its activist repertoire; in 1937, it was forced to move to Vilna and change its name to Nay-teater (New Theater), under which it performed until 1939.
In an interview published in the newspaper , Weichert commented thus on his acting studio:
In 1929, I renewed the activity of my drama school that had existed from 1922-24, a school that had instructed a gallery of distinguished actors. Thew new studio took on as its task not only prepare actors for Yiddish theater but also a specific Yiddish artistic approach . I assembled thirty young people, mostly working-class. For a three-year period with fanatical devotion, we studied diverse theatrical studies.
Information pulled from Jeffrey Veidlinger’s “From Boston to Mississippi” in Inventing the Modern Yiddish Stage. Eds. Joel Berkowitz and Barbara Henry.
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While in Moscow in the same year, Rotbaum completed drama studies and, in particular, focused on the workings and directing methods of the famous Soviet theatre of Meyerhold Tairow and Stanisławski. After returning from Moscow in 1929, Rotboym began his professional career staging Eugene O'Neill plays with the famed Vilna Troupe. During this time in Europe, many productions he directed were filled with dramatic conflicts that seemed to evolve from the sociopolitical themes of the day. In 1930, he directed the troupe in a number of successful productions including a Yiddish translation of All God’s Chillun’ Got Wings by Eugene O'Neill.
From 1930 to 1938, Rotbaum devoted much time to his other passion, painting, and he organized exhibitions of his own work in many Polish cities (Warsaw, Łódź, Katowice, Lublin, Vilno, Kovno, Róvne, Gdańsk, and others). His work comprised characteristic portraits: Jewish, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, peasant-types and a large collection of theatrical portraits (the majority from the Jewish theatre), such as that of Itzik Manger (1901-1969) and Nahum Zemach, founder of "Habima”, Shlomo Mikhoels (1890-1948) and many others. Throughout his life, Rotbaum continued to paint the Jewish faces he remembered from his youth; this work received numerous awards.
In 1938, Jakub Rotbaum directed a few Yiddish shows at the then avant-garde Jewish theater P. I. A. T., or Parizer yidisher avant garde Teater. In 1940 he was invited by Yiddish great Maurice Schwartz to direct his Yiddish Art Theatre troupe in three plays: Sholem Aleichem's Sender Blank, Sholem Asch’s Uncle Moses (Onkl Mozes), and Bergelson's We Want to Live (Mir viln lebn).]]>Rotbaum, Jewish theatrical director and painter, was born in Wroclaw. He was the older brother to Lia (Lisa) Rotbaum, a choreographer and director whose name also recurs in the programs of the Esther-Rokhl Kaminska Collection. After high school, he attended the School of Decorative Arts, The School of Fine Arts and the Film School in Warsaw. In 1923, he went to Berlin to study painting and met with the Vakhtangov Theatre. He made his directorial debut in 1925, acting as an assistant director in Warsaw’s Azazel cabaret theater, and the following year "The Post Office" also in Warsaw. In 1928, Rotbaum was commissioned by a private Jewish film producer from New York to direct a documentary film on Jewish life in the small towns and villages of Poland.
While in Moscow in the same year, Rotbaum completed drama studies and, in particular, focused on the workings and directing methods of the famous Soviet theatre of Meyerhold Tairow and Stanisławski. After returning from Moscow in 1929, Rotboym began his professional career staging Eugene O'Neill plays with the famed Vilna Troupe. During this time in Europe, many productions he directed were filled with dramatic conflicts that seemed to evolve from the sociopolitical themes of the day. In 1930, he directed the troupe in a number of successful productions including a Yiddish translation of All God’s Chillun’ Got Wings by Eugene O'Neill.
From 1930 to 1938, Rotbaum devoted much time to his other passion, painting, and he organized exhibitions of his own work in many Polish cities (Warsaw, Łódź, Katowice, Lublin, Vilno, Kovno, Róvne, Gdańsk, and others). His work comprised characteristic portraits: Jewish, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, peasant-types and a large collection of theatrical portraits (the majority from the Jewish theatre), such as that of Itzik Manger (1901-1969) and Nahum Zemach, founder of "Habima”, Shlomo Mikhoels (1890-1948) and many others. Throughout his life, Rotbaum continued to paint the Jewish faces he remembered from his youth; this work received numerous awards.
In 1938, Jakub Rotbaum directed a few Yiddish shows at the then avant-garde Jewish theater P. I. A. T., or Parizer yidisher avant garde Teater. In 1940 he was invited by Yiddish great Maurice Schwartz to direct his Yiddish Art Theatre troupe in three plays: Sholem Aleichem's Sender Blank, Sholem Asch’s Uncle Moses (Onkl Mozes), and Bergelson's We Want to Live (Mir viln lebn).YIVO owns the compilation of content that is posted on this website, which consists of text, images, and/or audio, and video. However, YIVO does not necessarily own each component of the compilation. Some content is in the public domain and some content is protected by third party rights. It is the user's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in YIVO websites.
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"The Jewish Frankenstein," the Golem, describes a rabbi in seventeenth-century Prague who creates a living statue to protect his community from harm. By the time Leivik wrote this play in 1921, he was living in the United States. He was born in Chervyen, Belarus, the oldest of nine children in a traditional home. Leivik joined the Jewish Bund in 1905 and was arrested in 1906 by the Russian authorities and sentenced to four years of forced labor and permanent exile in Siberia. He was smuggled out of Siberia and to America in 1913 where he wrote poetry and drama for several Yiddish dailies. The Golem was first staged in Hebrew in 1925 by Habimah in Moscow and some of the same participants put on a Yiddish version through the theater studio "Free Art" (Fraykunst), also in Moscow, in 1927.
The second professional production was produced in Polish in Lublin's City Theater using Mark Arnshteyn's translation.The Golem enjoyed most play during the interwar period in Polish in Poland. This production also played in Lodz (Municipal Theatre), Grodno, and Bialystok. In
1928, for instance, it played Warsaw's Circus (a venue of 2500 seats) where it was performed twenty-six times.
The third Polish production was by a Marek on 27 June 1928 in Lodz's Municipal Theatre, where the play was performed a long time with great success. Later the play in Polish also was performed in the municipal theatres of Grodno and Bialystok. Featured here is a photograph of an unidentified theatrical production of the play and a review of MarK Arnshteyn (1879-1943)'s production.
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No more is Esther-Rachel Kaminska, Mother of the Yiddish Theater. She fought for the people, She created (art) for the people and She died for the people.
Your monument is the love of Yiddish theater that you planted in the productive Jewish masses.
After she died, a death mask was made of her face, as was the fashion among celebrities. Her body was buried in Warsaw's Jewish cemetery with an elaborate monument created by the accomplished Jewish sculptor Joseph Rubinlicht. Only the gravestone of the great Yiddish writer Y.L. Peretz was bigger.
No more is Esther-Rachel Kaminska, Mother of the Yiddish Theater. She fought for the people, She created (art) for the people and She died for the people.
Your monument is the love of Yiddish theater that you planted in the productive Jewish masses.
After she died, a death mask was made of her face, as was the fashion among celebrities. Her body was buried in Warsaw's Jewish cemetery with an elaborate monument created by the accomplished Jewish sculptor Joseph Rubinlicht. Only the gravestone of the great Yiddish writer Y.L. Peretz was bigger.
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He also had close ties with actors of the Vilna Troupe pictured here with An-ski not long before he died. (An-ski is standing, fourth from left, among the actors of the Troupe including Dovid Herman, standing left, Alter Kacyzne, directly to An-ski's right, Sonia Alomis, middle in white shirt near An-ski, Leyb Kadison, seated right, and Mazo, seated middle). The Vilna Troupe, formed in Vilna during the last days of World War I, would be the first to perform the play.
But An-ski himself would not see it in a professional and public production. An-ski died on November 8, 1920 and was buried next to his spiritual partner, the Yiddish writer Y.L. Peretz, in Warsaw's Jewish Cemetery.
While An-ski had every intention of seeing The Dybbuk on the boards during his lifetime, history and politics interrupted. During World War I (1914-1919), An-ski spent a significant amount of time collecting funds for the relief effort and distributing food and relief to Jewish victims of the war. During these years, he continued to hone his play and test it on private audiences. He secured government permission from the Russian censor, and communicated with directors at the Moscow Art Theater about its production.
He also had close ties with actors of the Vilna Troupe pictured here with An-ski not long before he died. (An-ski is standing, fourth from left, among the actors of the Troupe including Dovid Herman, standing left, Alter Kacyzne, directly to An-ski's right, Sonia Alomis, middle in white shirt near An-ski, Leyb Kadison, seated right, and Mazo, seated middle). The Vilna Troupe, formed in Vilna during the last days of World War I, would be the first to perform the play.
But An-ski himself would not see it in a professional and public production. An-ski died on November 8, 1920 and was buried next to his spiritual partner, the Yiddish writer Y.L. Peretz, in Warsaw's Jewish Cemetery.
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In 1885, at the age of fifteen, she reached Warsaw. There, her older brother introduced her to Yiddish theater's foremost pioneer, Avrom Goldfaden (1840-1908). Goldfaden, a Russian-Jewish intellectual, theater impresario, and composer, had negotiated permission to stage Yiddish theater--mostly operettas--with the Russian government in 1878. Most of these performances by Goldfaden and, eventually, competing impresarios, were staged in Odessa, now in the Ukraine, as well as in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
By 1883, however, the Russian government banned the Yiddish theater once again. The effect of the ban was to push Yiddish theatrical activity westward into Polish lands, away from the city and into towns, with some activity in Warsaw. Soon after Goldfaden and Kaminska’s fateful meeting, Goldfaden gave up on Yiddish theater in the Russian Empire. Kaminska, however, did not. Over the following eight years, Kaminska performed intermittently in Warsaw and in small towns while supporting herself with a range of small jobs, such as cigarette-rolling, umbrella-making, and shoe-shining.
In 1893, she joined a troupe that performed regularly in Warsaw's El Dorado Theater. It was here that she quickly moved her way from chorister to lead, the first of which was the character of Mirele in Goldfaden's play The Sorceress. Those around her immediately recognized her stage presence and vocal talent. For the following ten years, Kaminska played three Goldfaden characters again and again: Mirele in The Sorceress, Dinah in Bar-kokhve, and Esther in Ahashverus. By the turn of the century, Kaminska and her husband and troupe manager, Avrom-Yitskhok Kaminska (1867-1918), broadened the Yiddish theatrical repertoire with dramatic offerings from the American Yiddish playwright Jacob Gordin (1853-1909) and materials they themselves translated into Yiddish. For instance, in 1903, they produced Maxim Gorky's best-known play The Lower Depths (1901).
While a range of legal obstacles and government prohibitions to the production of Yiddish-language performance were in place until World War I, Esther-Rachel, in collaboration with other persevering pioneers of Yiddish theater, continued to perform. She, alongside others, worked to reform Yiddish theater according to the highest standards of European drama. As Esther-Rachel grew more ambitious, her renown grew beyond Yiddish-speaking audiences. Her fame unlocked opportunities to perform in more prestigious venues within the Russian Empire, as well as even an invitation to perform in America, where she traveled in 1909. At this point, she was the most acclaimed Yiddish actress in the world.
]]>This theater museum collection’s namesake is Esther-Rachel (Ester-Rokhl) Kaminska. Esther-Rachel’s reputation was marked by her far-reaching talent as a preeminent Yiddish actor, the maternal presence she projected to her fellow actors and admirers, and the hurdles she overcame in putting on Yiddish theater in the Russian Empire. Esther-Rachel was born in 1870 in a shtetl called Porozovo, Grodno Province, the seventh and final child of an aging cantor and ritual slaughterer and his wife. According to her memoirs, Esther-Rachel always had an ear for song--from those sung by yeshiva students to those of the peasants. She dreamed of life in the big city, where some of her siblings had already gone.
In 1885, at the age of fifteen, she reached Warsaw. There, her older brother introduced her to Yiddish theater's foremost pioneer, Avrom Goldfaden (1840-1908). Goldfaden, a Russian-Jewish intellectual, theater impresario, and composer, had negotiated permission to stage Yiddish theater--mostly operettas--with the Russian government in 1878. Most of these performances by Goldfaden and, eventually, competing impresarios, were staged in Odessa, now in the Ukraine, as well as in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
By 1883, however, the Russian government banned the Yiddish theater once again. The effect of the ban was to push Yiddish theatrical activity westward into Polish lands, away from the city and into towns, with some activity in Warsaw. Soon after Goldfaden and Kaminska’s fateful meeting, Goldfaden gave up on Yiddish theater in the Russian Empire. Kaminska, however, did not. Over the following eight years, Kaminska performed intermittently in Warsaw and in small towns while supporting herself with a range of small jobs, such as cigarette-rolling, umbrella-making, and shoe-shining.
In 1893, she joined a troupe that performed regularly in Warsaw's El Dorado Theater. It was here that she quickly moved her way from chorister to lead, the first of which was the character of Mirele in Goldfaden's play The Sorceress. Those around her immediately recognized her stage presence and vocal talent. For the following ten years, Kaminska played three Goldfaden characters again and again: Mirele in The Sorceress, Dinah in Bar-kokhve, and Esther in Ahashverus. By the turn of the century, Kaminska and her husband and troupe manager, Avrom-Yitskhok Kaminska (1867-1918), broadened the Yiddish theatrical repertoire with dramatic offerings from the American Yiddish playwright Jacob Gordin (1853-1909) and materials they themselves translated into Yiddish. For instance, in 1903, they produced Maxim Gorky's best-known play The Lower Depths (1901).
While a range of legal obstacles and government prohibitions to the production of Yiddish-language performance were in place until World War I, Esther-Rachel, in collaboration with other persevering pioneers of Yiddish theater, continued to perform. She, alongside others, worked to reform Yiddish theater according to the highest standards of European drama. As Esther-Rachel grew more ambitious, her renown grew beyond Yiddish-speaking audiences. Her fame unlocked opportunities to perform in more prestigious venues within the Russian Empire, as well as even an invitation to perform in America, where she traveled in 1909. At this point, she was the most acclaimed Yiddish actress in the world.
YIVO owns the compilation of content that is posted on this website, which consists of text, images, and/or audio, and video. However, YIVO does not necessarily own each component of the compilation. Some content is in the public domain and some content is protected by third party rights. It is the user's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in YIVO websites.
The materials on this web site may be used for personal, research and educational purposes only. Publication (including posting on the Internet and online exhibitions) or any other use without prior authorization is prohibited. Please visit https://www.yivo.org/Rights-Reproductions for more information about use of materials from this website.
YIVO has employed due diligence in seeking to identify copyright holders of the materials in this compilation. We invite any copyright owners who are not properly identified to contact us at yivomail@yivo.cjh.org.
YIVO owns the compilation of content that is posted on this website, which consists of text, images, and/or audio, and video. However, YIVO does not necessarily own each component of the compilation. Some content is in the public domain and some content is protected by third party rights. It is the user's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in YIVO websites.
The materials on this web site may be used for personal, research and educational purposes only. Publication (including posting on the Internet and online exhibitions) or any other use without prior authorization is prohibited. Please visit https://www.yivo.org/Rights-Reproductions for more information about use of materials from this website.
YIVO has employed due diligence in seeking to identify copyright holders of the materials in this compilation. We invite any copyright owners who are not properly identified to contact us at yivomail@yivo.cjh.org.