Shakespeare on the American Yiddish Stage

by Berkowitz, Joel

• ISBN13: 9780877458005
• ISBN10: 0877458006
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Iowa Pr

Summary

The professional Yiddish theatre started in 1876 in Eastern Europe; with the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, masses of Eastern European Jews began moving westward, and New York--Manhattan's Bowery and Second Avenue--soon became the world's center of Yiddish theatre. At first the Yiddish repertoire revolved around comedies, operettas, and melodramas, but by the early 1890s America's Yiddish actors were wild about Shakespeare. InShakespeare on the American Yiddish Stage,Joel Berkowitz knowledgably and intelligently constructs the history of this unique theatrical culture.

Author Biography

Joel Berkowitz is assistant professor of modern Jewish studies at the State University of New York at Albany.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
"Gordin Is Greater Than Shakespeare": The Jewish King and Queen Lear	p. 31
Classical Influenza, or, Hamlet Learns Yiddish	p. 73
An Othello Potpourri	p. 113
"Parents Have Hearts of Stone": Romeo and Juliet	p. 140
"A True Jewish Jew": A Shylock Quartet	p. 172
Conclusion	p. 206
Notes	p. 231
Bibliography	p. 257
Index	p. 275
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