Articles

May­hill Fowler’s book shines light on the blind spots of nation­al cul­tur­al his­to­ries of turn of the cen­tu­ry Ukraine, fol­low­ing the often uneasy inter­face between author­i­ties and art institutions.

Mar 26, 2018

Ri Turn­er reviews the World Pre­mière of Ida Fink’s Der tish in Paris.

May 09, 2019

Hertz Gros­bard’s ​“word con­certs” were an embod­i­ment of ​“Jew­speak,” per­for­mances that sought to give life to the Yid­dish lit­er­ary tradition.

Jun 23, 2020

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

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

The case study of Yente Telebende is mere­ly one exam­ple of pop­u­lar Yid­dish cul­ture — the­ater, pulp fic­tion, and news­pa­pers — that strove for com­mer­cial suc­cess by appeal­ing to the tastes of its audi­ence, shaped by Amer­i­can cul­ture’s vocab­u­lary and images of Blackness.

Apr 21, 2023

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

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

In this study of Shi­men Dzi­gan and Yis­roel Schu­mach­er, Diego Rot­man presents a study of the sub­ver­sive pow­er of Yid­dish com­e­dy in the twen­ti­eth century.

Sep 18, 2023