American ,}swish Periodical Caner

CLIFTON AVENUE - CINCINNATI 20, 01110

PAGE FIVE

h
atiMersordeimuntow t

self. Pinski deserted to write more
plays, Ben Ann went on the English
tage; Reichert died and Mrs. Schnit•
zee joned a company of "Shand" play-
ers.
Later a second attempt St what
=vs.
By A. BRENNER
became the present Jewish Art Thea-
tough cane. But there were some ter wit, Made under the leadership of
The Yiddish theater has just cele- actors of different type. There was Morris Schwartz. It failed, tee, and
brated its birthday. The celebration Jacob I'. Adler, for instance, whose was about to turn its head to Second
took the form of a Goldfaden revival. name is closely linked with that of avenue, to the traditional plays of the
Plays by Goldfaden, long out of Gurdin's. Ile was a leader in the new old Yiddish theater, when a play by
date, have been revived; lectures on literary and artistic movement in the Hirshbein was produced and not with
Goldfaden were given at various the- Yiddish theater. Adler had no voice fair success. That gave the theater
aters, and a Goldfaden Book was is- for singing. He had to depend on breathing space. Then a play by
sued by the Jewish Theatrical Mu- his acting alone. And he developed Sholomm Aleichem was produced, net-
seum Society containing valuable ma- into a tine actor, one of the greatest ting sufficient money to make up for
terial for a history of the Jewish the Yiddish stage has seep There the previous losses. Sholom Aleichein
stage.
were others like Kessler, whose inborn gave the Yiddish theater, among other
It was a befitting revival. Gold- talent was hampered by the silly parts plays, the best Yiddish comedy. He
also helped to inculcate in the Jot ish
Eaten deserved it, for he truly was they had to act.
public a better artistic !MISC.
the father of the Yiddish theater. Ile
Gordin brought the Yiddish plat the
The present-day productions of the
organized the first professional com-. down to realities. The plots were
pany that presented Yiddish plays. simple, the situations natural and Yiddish Art Theater have been com-
Ile sought out the actors and trained within human possibility.. Acting woo pared favorably with the list on
them. Ile wrote the plays and pro- elevated from the usual circus down Broadway and even with those of the
(bleed them. All that began 50 years stunts to the presentation of types and Moscow Art Theater. And at that, the
is still in its infamy.
thea
ago. Only 15 years ago Goldfaden I individual , Singing was reduced to
Yiddish
a Ytheater
t he
.. I
died in. New York forgotten by
owl.%,
minimum.
public, derided by the craws, shortly real people in Gordin's plays. Conlin
ltri spent so much of his life away f i ,,,,,
after his last play met with a sin ge-
actual contact with Jew's that he hail
tar failure.
Goldfaden's first company was sue- to create them out of his imagination.
TORONTO.—(J. T. A.)—A deci-
cessful at its very inception. Soon They were shadows rather than Per'
sion on the kosher meat question
sons.
other companies were ormet .
which
was brought before the High
Sometimes
Then, too, Gordin's attitude, his
playwrights appeared.
Court of Ontario in a civil suit of a
t hey copied Goldfaden's plays, or philosophy of life in general and of Jewish butcher against the Kehillah
More often they Jewish life in particular was that of
adopted them.
adapted Roumanian or German the Maskil, the Jewish reformer of the was made known here in a unique
re-
plays. Occasionally one of them sue- Enlightment pericd. He was fault- case when the Canadian court
the matter 'for rabbinical de-
INVESTMENT BANKERS
ceeded in writing a play which was finding, caustic, especially portraying ferred
not so very much worse than t ost the hypocrisy of the orthodox Jew, as cision.
The butcher, Cohen, whose wares
of Goldfaden. These companies if his orthodoxy had anything to do
$5, -
toured Europe, traveling from land with it To Gordin's credit may it be were declared treipha, asked for
Specializing in Land Contracts
damages. On the recommenda-
o land and town to town. They said, too, that he did not hesitate to 000
tion
of
Justice
Wright,
the
matter
attack what he considered, the weak-
were favorably "'d yed only by the attack,
lower classes. Occasionally a rabbi nessesof the labor leaders. One phrase was referred to a rabbinical court
spoke openly against allowing them in the mouth of one of his heroes-- consisting of three representatives of
the Union of Orthodox Rabbis in the
to perform. Sometimes the police "What do I need sense for if I have a
United States and Canada, with head-
rounded them up and kept them constitution?"—brought down upon
locked in jail overnight. Not nitre- him the wrath of the labor unions, at quarters in New York. The rabbini-
cal churl, consisting of Rabbi Israel
quently they had to walk to the next ti me when they were powers in
Rosenberg, Rabbi Joseph Kanowitz
town for lack of fare and many a Yiddish circles. Gordin also was the
Rabbi Sefer, after a sitting which
111111111111111111111111
night the entire company went to first to put on the stage Gentile char- and
lasted eight days, ruled that a ma-
actors
of
kind
and
sympathetic
nature
bed without supper.
Such was the beginning of the Yid- in opposition to harsh, unsympathetic jority of rabbis in any given commun-
ity has the right to consider as
-0-00-000-00-04200-0044204)-0-032001:4120-0420r4004-12 dish theater. There were plays writ- Jews. Ile brought not only new life treipha such meat as was not slaugh-
ten in Yiddish, centuries before. to the Yiddish stage, but also new
Cs0 (11 20324212120420-04200 -01-00
O
There were Jewish Miracle and Mys- ideas and new ideals. Ile raised the tered under their supervision.
In the particular case under con-
ter}' plays in the Middle Ages an a Yiddish theater to a higher intellec-
sideration the rabbis rifled that Cohen
Jewish version of the Italian Comedia tual plane. Ile gave it modernity in
is not entitled to the damages
tel Arte during the renaissance. But form and content.
claimed. In the future all rabbis
Gordin was the bridge between the
the transition to the modern thea•
must join the Kehillah and act joint-
late and abrupt. It took place old Yiddish theater and the new. One
ly. A decision of the majority of
ter was
at a time when both acting and the step away from Gordin and we have
the rabbis should be considered bind-
at their worst and audi- the "literary" theater qn the modern
were
Play least appreciative. It was no sense; still another step and we have ing in all religious matters.
owes
- The rabbis also drafted what was
time for art theaters, and Goldfaden the Yiddish Art Theater.
Kohrin was a close second to Gor- termed a peace document containing
created none.
22 elapses dealing with ways and
But it is to the credit of Goldfaden din. A fellow soldier in hte struggle mound of a working agreement and
old, Kobrin went beyond Ger-
peace between the rabbis and the
that he not only created a 'i but with in
theater almost out of nothing, din e thth
new theater. Like Gordirs Kehillah. Rabbi Weinrib, the oldest
techni qe
u an d
a
d rmatic
he p
chairman of a rabbinical committee
that the theater he created was Jew- kledge
wrote
but
he
now ossessedf
o t h e stage,
for one month, during which the re-
ish both in content and form. He
could easily have adapted German more faithfully to Jewish life aid
pt a joint Kehillah in

Yiddish Theater Celebrates Its Birthday

=
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10511 ci c flastIonall

6ratiq5

WE EXTEND OUR SINCERE WISHES To
DETRROIT JEWRY FOR A HAPPY AND
PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR.

1926

00%

5687

May the Coming Year be filled with
Health, Contentment and Prosperity
for All.

-

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Jewish people of Michi-

BAGLEY

INVESTMENTS

FORD BUILDING

ure that I felicitate the

and Russian plays, but he chose to character.
In Russia, Mendell, Sholom Ale:- Toronto is to be effected.
write on such topics as "Shulamith,"
"Joseph and His Brethren," "The chess, Pinski, Ash and Hirshbein cre-
0-01:10042
Offering pf Isaac," and "The Macca. ated the modern Jewish drama. Their
1:41204:4012120 0
bees." Ile sought the lyric and epic plays have been translated into sari-
produced
s
geanitnl
sever
Jla4gisuhagseta
n
-
os
motives in the Jewish past and turned onti a
r t i th rse.
l countries.
them into play and song.
Hirshbein and Sholom Aleichem
It is interesting to note that there I particularly must be mentioned in
MOVING and EXPRESS
were attempts to establish a Yiddish I connection with the establishment of
theater in America some time before the new Yiddish Art Theater. While
318 BAGLEY
Goldfaden attempted it in ROUITifthia. the literary theater was struggling
-
But the first Yiddish theatrical per- with the Gordin theater on the
with what was left of the
formance in America w as given in ha
d post-Goldfaden
ISS2... There had grown a demand for Gonld
dfaadnedn
ewish
theater
on
the
part
of
the
J
hard,
on
the
other,an
attempt was made to
a the
create it Jewish art theater. David
immigrants whose lives were
dull and drab and who had not yet l'inski, the well known playwright,
evolved here a form of relaxation Emanuel Reichert, the equally famous
TRUNKS MOVED for $1
nor
channel for
the of
expression
their a emotions.
Many
them had of 1 actor and producer, and lien Anti of
Breadway and Second avenue, and
Canadian Trips.
seen Yiddish performances abroad; Henrietta Schnitzer, a Jewish actress,
,
some of them could repeat songs and l org„anized an art theater. It furthered
Storage
dialogues of plays that were repeated the art of production in the Yiddish
Moving Vans
to them. theater. It was an artistic success but
cmoott000ttooec00000 tm0000
a
was
financially,
it
could
not
maintain
it-
One if these immigrants

young man by the name of Boris
Thomashefsky , lie was a cigarette-
a I
maker by trade on week days and,
cantor on the Sabbath. He knew' of
the Yiddish theater abroad. Ile had
a 1 l
Ile inc I us red
theatrical ambitions.
saloonkeeper on Henry street to in-'
vest some money in a Yiddish theater.
But the saloonkeeper did not want to
go into it by himself. So Thomashef-
sky got hint a partner, a butcher on
Rivington street, and the two of them
sent for a troupe of Jewish actors
who were playing in London.
The London company gave its first
performance in Turn Hall, on Fourth
street, New York. The play was
Goldfaden's "Koldunia" and it nearly I,
wrecked the whole undertaking. It r
aroused the opposition of the then
existing Jewish Immigration Conimit-
tee. That committee had little 'sym-
!lathy for the very idea of a Yiddish
theater.
It was characteristic of the audi-
ence of that time that the public freely
interrupted whenever anything on the'
stage, to their mind, was wrong. A
story is told of a play in which one
part was that of an aged Jew. A
woman in the gallery mistook the ac-1
tor in makeup for a real old Jew and'
shouted to him: "Hey, you old Terach, I
are'nt you ashamed of yourself to
make such a fool of yourself at your
age? Is this the way you expect to
go to the world to come?"
Low, indeed, was the state of both !
audience and stage in the early days,
of the Yiddish theater in America.
Playwrights catered to the taste of the
public and view with each other in
reaching down to the audience. The
Yiddish theater was Well on its down-
ward path when its savior appeared
in the person of Jacob Gordin.
Gordin was man of repute in Rus-
sia. At the age of 17 he began to
write for Russian magazines. Later
he turned religious reformer and or-'
ganized a Biblical Brotherhood. The
Russian government looked with little
favor upon this new religious leader.
0 Ile was a Jew and that was enough;
0 he was an intellectual, ann that was
more than enough; in addition he car-
ried his appeal to the students and
other elements of the intelligentzia.
The Russian government consequentl:•
expelled Gordin from the country. tie
came to America ■ man of 40.
Were Gordin ■ younger man he
might have gone out peddling or
turned to shirt-making as did most of
the Jewish intellectuals who same
here at that time. Gordin could nrt
begin life anew; he had to contieue
his previous work. For • while hs
edited a Russian newspaper. When it
discontinued publication he turned
the Yiddish thsater. It
n
o t ea lily
i lucrative career. Gordin an
reseiveo
sloe each for his early plays.
Psychologically. the Yiddish stage
was prepared for Gordin. The plays
of that time were almost exclusively
operatic, depending upon song and
dance for their appeal. The plots
were artificial and ridiculous. There •
was no characterization, the actors
playing set types and speaking lire.
of their own making. When Conlin
directed one of his plays in rehearsal .
he remonstrated with ere actsr for
The
taking liberties with the ttxt
actor bluntly told Gordin teat he was
his own boss and would sestak as he ,
pleased. Gordin slapped the actor's
face. Many an actor thereafter had i
cause to fear Gordin's fist and his

gan on the Occasion of

Rosh liashonah, 5687.

Phones:
Randolph 8119
Edgewood 3175-R

JOE T. BLYTHE

Republican Candidate for

SHERIFF OF WAYNE COUNTY

The

Commercial State Savings Bank

OF DETROIT

expresses the wish and hope that the New Year
may bring a full measure of Happiness and
Prosperity to Detroit Jewry

(Commenced Business August 1, 1921.)

Member Federal Reserve System.

OFFICERS

W. J.

Linton, Executive Vice-President

Board
Elbert H. Fowler, Chairman of

1

C. R. McLaughlin, President
Lewis G. Gorton, V ice - President
Frank G. Brinier, Vice - President

Arnold Baenxigisr, Vice-President
Burt Owen, Assistant Cashier

Charles P. Sieder, Vi .." at •

President

E. A.

0

T. All.. Smith, Vice-President and Cashier

Cashier
W. G. Cooper, Assistant

Robinson, Assistant Cashier

N
a

DIRECTORS

George G. Homey

Alfred E. D. Allan

Ernest 0. Knight

Frank G. Baxter

Albert F. Manning

Elbert H. Fowler

Frederick C. M•thews

James H. Garlick

C. R. McLaughlin

Lewis G. Gorton

George W. Grmes

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Arthur E. Wood

Fred L. Woodworth

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dale)

0

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ss .11• 101•WOOTWOMIX ITIOOMM

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