Mother's Sabbath Days, Chaim Grade's memoir of
growing up in Vilna in the years before World
War II, and it quickly became her all-time
favorite book.
"My first thought was I wanted to go to this
Vilna," O'Brien says. "My second thought was, 'It
doesn't exist anymore.' It was obliterated."
In some ways, Yiddish literature reminded
O'Brien of the Irish literature she had grown up
with, something in which she remains interested.
She recently wrote and performed in a play called
The Sandpiper, about three generations of Irish
storytellers. O'Brien also wrote a novel, called
Pleasure Pig, about a young Irish-American
woman who moves to New York. She is currently
trying to find a publisher for it.
As an undergraduate at Boston University,
O'Brien designed her own major in Yiddish litera-
ture, supplementing the school's Yiddish offerings
with courses at Harvard, Hebrew College and an
internship with the National Yiddish Book Center
in Amherst, Mass.
Other Views
Ruth Wisse, one of O'Brien's professors at
Harvard, calls her "exceptional."
"Even as a student, she seemed to know just
It's no blarney
tasizes about one day returning and
staging plays in Israel's numerous
Roman amphitheaters.
Although her area of passion may
lack glamour and recognition,
O'Brien is anything but frumpy.
She carries herself with the poise of
a seasoned actress and shows up to
class decked out in a mustard-col-
ored felt fedora, mustard-colored
scarf, low-cut black shirt and bright
red lipstick. Her eyebrows are art-
fully shaped.
Sitting at a table in the front of
the classroom, O'Brien lectures
completely from memory, glancing
at her notes only to check direct
quotes. And she seems to know
everything, not just about the
famed theaters of Manhattan's
Second Avenue, but even about rel-
atively obscure outposts of Yiddish
culture like Manitoba, Canada.
O'Brien speaks of famous Yiddish
playwrights and actors with a famil-
iarity of someone who knew them
personally. In fact, she has known
some of them. Once a week, she has
Irish Yiddishist Caraid O'Brien
helps keep alive the world of Yiddish theater.
where she was headed," Wisse wrote in an e-mail
interview. "Already as an undergraduate she want-
ed to draw simultaneously from Irish and Yiddish
drama and she succeeded in doing exactly that.
She has not only studied its history — she is
making Yiddish theater history."
Aaron Lansky, founder and director of the
National Yiddish Book Center, also speaks highly
of O'Brien, describing her commitment to
Yiddish literature as "infectious."
"She's very smart, with real intellectual breadth,
and she knows literature," Lansky says. "She has a
spirit about her, a spark. You just knew she was
going to go on and do something with all this."
O'Brien also honed her Yiddish credentials dur-
ing a junior year abroad at Hebrew University of
Jerusalem in 1994-1995. She has fond memories
of her year in Israel, where she studied Hebrew
and Yiddish and participated in several theater
productions. She was particularly impressed by
Israelis' diversity and energy.
Although she has not been back since, she fan-
a standing date with her friend and
mentor, Luba Kadison Buloff, a 98-
year-old Lithuanian-born Yiddish
star.
Kadison Buloff calls O'Brien a
"good friend," noting, "We think
alike and have common interests
about literature."
Caraid O'Brien as Hindl in "God of Vengeance," a controversial
Sholem Asch play that O'Brien translated and helped produce.
Ulterior Motives?
Indeed, O'Brien gets along well with many
Yiddish-speaking seniors, including the grandpar-
ents of many of her friends.
But what is it like to be, well, the gentile in
such a Jewish world?
O'Brien says she's felt welcomed and that not
being Jewish enables her to "look at Yiddish cul-
ture with a clean mind, without previous associa-
tions."
While some Jews have been suspicious of her
motives, "the more knowledgeable people are
about Jewish literature, religious or secular, the
more interested they are in my work," she says.
People often try to set O'Brien up with their
Jewish sons and ask when she's converting —
which she is not.
As for her own family members, they've been
supportive of her endeavors, although her parents
have one regret that many Jewish parents will
understand. They sometimes wish that, instead of
pursuing the unstable, low-paying life of a writer
and actress she had followed in her father's foot-
steps and become a doctor. ❑
JN
3/17
2005
45