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A scene from "Ellis Island."

`Ellis Island' Revue
At Windsor, Detroit JCCs

15870 Middlebelt
Livonia
Between 5 & 6 Mile

r

Sterling

`West

P•70

L. — '14 icoc* -

261-9890

HOURS:
Daily 10-9
Wed., Sat. 10-6
Sunday 12-5

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i#

AMY J. MEHLER

Staff Writer

T

he place is turn-of-the-
century America. A
girl arrives at Ellis
Island, where she and her
uncle sign her immigration
papers.
She doesn't realize that
her uncle has tricked her
into signing a marriage cer-
tificate. She is young and
doesn't want to be married
to an old, lecherous man.
She threatens to run away,
but has nowhere to go.
The story, which is true,
first appeared as a bintel
brief, one of a bundle of
letters written to the editors
of the Jewish Daily Forward,
this country's oldest Yiddish
language newspaper.
This weekend, Dora
Wasserman, director of the
Yiddish Theatre of Saidye
Bronfman Centre in Mon-
treal, brings these bundles of
letters to life in two metro
area performances: at 8 p.m.
March 7 at the Jewish
Community Center in West
Bloomfield and at 1 p.m.
March 8 at the Jewish
Community Centre in Wind-
sor.
Ellis Island, an English
and Yiddish musical revue,
is based on a Bintel Brief,
published a few years ago as
a collection of letters written
by newly arrived Eastern
European immigrants. Fac-
ed with limited options and
overwhelming social and
economic problems, the new
immigrants turned to the
"only" trustworthy source:
Forward Editor Abraham
Cahan.
Mr. Cahan, confidante to
the immigrant masses, cre-
ated the column in 1906 and
was in charge of it until his
death in 1951. About a half a
year ago, Mrs. Wasserman

asked Abraham Schulman, a
feature writer at the For-
ward, to consider putting
Bintel Brief into dramatic
form.

Ellis Island was the first
stop for millions of immi-
grants who at the beginning
of the 20th century fled
persecution and pogroms in
their native lands. "Seeing
the endless lines of hopefuls,
anxiously awaiting the pro-
cessing of their exit visas,
brought me back to the time,
40 years ago, when I too,
became an emigre," writes
Mrs. Wasserman in direc-
tor's notes to her play.
In 1950, Mrs. Wasserman
came to Canada with her
husband, Sam, and their two
young children. She taught
acting to children at the
Jewish Public Library, mov-
ed on to Workmen's Circle
and later to Jewish People's
and Peretz School. In 1972,
the Yiddish Theatre, now 35
years old, became the resi-
dent company of the Saidye
Bronfman Centre.
Ellis Island captures the
lives of real people. For in-
stance, what's a married
husband to do when his first
wife, the one he left in
Europe, suddenly shows up
with their children?
Or, how do new immi-
grants cope with an English
teacher unable to speak
Yiddish, instructing immi-
grants in their new lang-
uage?
"Strangely enough,
nothing much has changed
in the last half-century,"
said Yiddish Theatre Per-
forming Arts Director
Natalie Bonjour. Ellis Island
speaks to today's wave of
immigrants as much as it
did to to this century's first
wave of immigrants. Just
the names and places are
different."

❑

