BY PHILIP RUSKIN

(Standard Feature Syndicate)

Half a century ago, in Janu-
ary 1908, there passed away, in
New York, Abraham Goldfaden,
67 years old, who, although he
had lived in the United States
less than seven years, had
greatly contributed to the glory
of the Yiddish theater.

Yiddish drama had been
written and played before
him, in Germany as early as
1800, in Warsaw around 1839
and in Odessa in 1864. It was
a most primitive theater,
though, dramatizing biblical
subjects such as "The Sale
of Joseph" or the dramatic
stories of Moses, Esther and

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41-TH E DETROIT JEWISH NEWS—Fri day , April 4, 1958

Abraham Goldfaden, Father of the Yiddish Theater

Best Wishes of the Season

Athalie. Both Zunser and
Mendele Mosher Seforim au-
thored these plays, but it was
Abraham Goldfaden who
knew how to create a drama
filled to the brim with Jewish
feeling and lore and had the
right inborn sense of theatri-
cality and exciting dramatic
plot.
The great Yiddish playwright,
composer and poet was born in
1840 in Staro Konstantinow,
South Russia, son of a humble
watchmaker. His parents gave
the lively youngster a good

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ABRAHAM GOLDFADEN

education sending him to the
Rabbinical Seminary of Zhito-
mir where he attended classes
for 9 years and graduated with
honors in 1866.
He started his literary
career with his "Yiddele
Poems" (1866) of which nu-
merous editions were pub-
lished for their strength of
expresion and deep Jewish
feeling. A second collection
of poems entitled "Tzitzim
uhn Uvrachim" (Blossoms
and Flowers) also sold well.
In 1875, young Abraham emi-
grated to Lemberg (Galicia)
where he founded and edited
a humorous Yiddish journal,
"Israelik," which folded after
a few months. Undeterred,
he went to Czernowitz (Buko-
wina) and, in 1876, founded the
"Israelitische Volksblatt, which
met the same fate within a few
months. Again he packed his
trunks, went to Romania where
he found his true vocation,
Goldfaden's fame was es-
tablished when he continued
writing his Yiddish plays. He
deserves the title of "Father
of the Yiddish Opera", for he
was a talented, though un-
schooled composer, passion.
ately interested in Jewish folk
music which mirrors so vi-
vidly the joys and sorrows
of a great people.
His most famous operas are
"Sulamith" (1880) and "Bar
Kochba" (1882), both built upon
historical subjects, but oriental
in character. In a letter to
Sholem Aleichem, Goldfaden
stresses his preference for his-
torical plays: "patriotic pieces
like Dr. Almosada, Bar Kochba,
Sulamith and The Sacrifice of
Isaac".
In 1883, the Russian govern-
ment prohibited the produc-
tion of Jewish plays and
Goldfaden, deeply disillu-
sioned, returned to Romania
and Galicia, then to Warsaw,
where he revived the Yiddish
theater, though in a German
guise.
In 1887, he sailed to New
York where, despite his earlier
journalistic failures, he founded
the first illustrated Yiddish
periodical, the "New Yorker
Illustrierte Yiddische Zeitung"
of which only 17 issues ap-
peared. Two years, later, he
toured Europe with his own
troupe, returned to New York
in 1903 where he spent the rest
of his life in playwriting and
composing and died there on
Jan. 9, 1908.

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