Reviews

Ester-Rokhl Kaminska picks blackberries better than anyone else. When she lights Shabbos candlesticks, they shine brighter than any other Shabbos candlesticks.

Jan 12, 2026

As Women on the Yiddish Stage makes clear, women were not peripheral figures but central players in the making of Yiddish cultural life. Their stories, whether told through archival fragments, recovered memoirs, or close readings of performance, call for a more inclusive and accurate understanding—one in which actresses are not merely remembered for their presence onstage, but recognized for their lasting cultural impact.

Jun 30, 2025

Paula Ansaldo’s book brings about a long-awaited return of Yiddish and the IFT to their rightful place in Argentine theater history and Jewish theater history.

Feb 26, 2025

These three wriers with lives unfolding in three different localities—Tsarist Russia, Poland, and the US—wrote plays that grapple with issues —such as the tragic fate of the agune (“chained wife”), motherhood, self-realization, sex work, financial independence, and reproductive autonomy— that unfortunately are still urgent a century later.

Jul 09, 2024

Today’s Yiddishists can find historical models for politically-engaged cultural activism in Nick Underwood’s account of interwar Paris.

Feb 07, 2024

Nov 20, 2023

The Rise of the Modern Yiddish Stage is a monumental work that tells the story of Avrom Goldfaden, Yiddish theater’s most central, confounding, and enigmatic figure while also situating it in the context of Yiddish theater’s initial development.

Nov 25, 2019