Yiddish theatre

Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revues; melodrama; naturalist drama; expressionist and modernist plays. At its height, its geographical scope was comparably broad: from the late 19th century until just before World War II, professional Yiddish theatre could be found throughout the heavily Jewish areas of Eastern and East Central Europe, but also in Berlin, London, Paris, Buenos Aires and New York City. Yiddish theatre's roots include the often satiric plays traditionally performed during religious holiday of Purim (known as Purimshpils); other masquerades such as the Dance of Death; the singing of cantors in the synagogues; Jewish secular song and dramatic improvisation; exposure to the theatre traditions of various European countries, and the Jewish literary culture that had grown in the wake of the Jewish enlightenment (Haskalah). Israil Bercovici wrote that it is through Yiddish theatre that "Jewish culture entered in dialogue with the outside world," both by putting itself on display and by importing theatrical pieces from other cultures. Themes such as immigration, poverty, integration, and strong ancestral ties can be found in many Yiddish theatre productions. Noah Prilutski (1882–1941) noted that Yiddish theatre did not arise simultaneously with theatre in other European "national" languages; he conjectured that this was at least in part because the Jewish sense of nationality favored Hebrew over Yiddish as a "national" language, but few Jews of the period were actually comfortable using Hebrew outside of a religious/liturgical context. Nonetheless, various types of performances, including those of cantors, preachers, jesters, and instrumental musicians, were a part of Eastern European Jewish life long before the formal advent of Yiddish theatre.

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Related concepts (8)

Yiddishist movement

Yiddishism (Yiddish: ײִדישיזם) is a cultural and linguistic movement which began among Jews in Eastern Europe during the latter part of the 19th century. Some of the leading founders of this movement were Mendele Moykher-Sforim (1836–1917), I. L. Peretz (1852–1915), and Sholem Aleichem (1859–1916). In 1861, Yehoshua Mordechai Lifshitz (1828–1878), who is considered the father of Yiddishism and Yiddish lexicography, circulated an essay entitled “The Four Classes” (Yiddish: די פיר קלאַסן) in which he referred to Yiddish as a completely separate language from both German and Hebrew and, in the European context of his audience, the "mother tongue" of the Jewish people.

Jewish culture

Jewish culture is the culture of the Jewish people, from its formation in ancient times until the current age. Judaism itself is not a faith-based religion, but an orthoprax and ethnoreligion, pertaining to deed, practice, and identity. Jewish culture covers many aspects, including religion and worldviews, literature, media, and cinema, art and architecture, cuisine and traditional dress, attitudes to gender, marriage, and family, social customs and lifestyles, music and dance.

Klezmer

Klezmer (קלעזמער or כּלי־זמר) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for listening; these would have been played at weddings and other social functions. The musical genre—also sometimes known by the earlier term freilach music (freilach, "joyous, happy")—incorporated elements of many other musical genres including Ottoman (especially Greek and Romanian) music, Baroque music, German and Slavic folk dances, and religious Jewish music.