Articles

From the 1920s until the 1950s, Yid­dish Buenos Aires host­ed a thriv­ing the­atri­cal land­scape. Crit­ics com­plained that the pub­lic’s ado­ra­tion of ​“stars” pro­pelled a pre­pon­der­ance of shund at the expense of ​“bet­ter” (lit­er­ary) plays.

May 02, 2021

In his con­cert career Zalud­kovsky walked a fine line between per­form­ing the sacred iden­ti­ty of can­tor and falling into the forms of cul­tur­al crime that he him­self had iden­ti­fied as cor­rupt­ing tra­di­tion through exces­sive com­mer­cial­iza­tion and medi­a­ti­za­tion of sacred music.

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May 23, 2022

As the open­ing of the spe­cial issue on shund the­ater, this intro­duc­tion sit­u­ates the four arti­cles and two trans­la­tions in the his­to­ry of the study of shund.

Apr 21, 2023

While Hebrew cul­tur­al dis­course tend­ed to treat Yid­dish the­atre as a kind of ​“out­side” cul­ture, light enter­tain­ment shows in Yid­dish reveal close engage­ment with the cen­tral icons and themes of Israeli society.

Apr 21, 2023

Focus­ing on Abra­ham M. Sharkansky’s 1896 play Kol nidre, oder di geheyme yidn in madrid (Kol Nidre, or the Secret Jews of Madrid), this arti­cle exam­ines how, on both sides of the Atlantic, the Kol Nidre prayer per­formed in the Yid­dish the­atre reflect­ed pro­found mod­ern and migra­to­ry cul­tur­al trans­gres­sions, between cat­e­gories such as high and low, reli­gion and enter­tain­ment, the holy and the theatrical.

Apr 21, 2023

Exam­in­ing Rose Shomer Bache­lis and Miri­am Shomer Zunser in the con­text of their famous shund-writ­ing fam­i­ly, this arti­cle argues that their operetta ​“Der liebes tants” — a love tri­an­gle with an Apache dance motif — should be read against the grain to empha­size the impor­tance of sisterhood.

Apr 21, 2023