A Bitter Sweet New Year
It’s a new year!
Just a few years ago, it was new years eve, I wanted to hold on to the year that just passed. I remember 2018, going into 2019, I was shocked that I didn’t want the year to be over. I felt as if time was running away from me and I had so much I still wanted to accomplish.
א גרוס פון יענע וועלט
די אויגן לעפלעך ס'קלעבט די געדאנקען אין א פארוואגלט ארט שוועבט דאס גוף צום בעטל צוגענאגלט מיט ברויזנדע טרוימען באהאגלט ס'חלומט זיך א חלום פון די וועלט א כוואליע אין קאפ זיך געשטעלט וואלן ס'רוישט, קיינמאל אנטוישט עס...
Zaidy
I don’t want my grandfather to die. I’m just not ready. I know, when is anyone ever ready to let go forever? But not now, it’s the worst time. I haven’t gotten time to change him: my grandfather. To make him happy with me. I’m just in the midst of destroying every...
Eishes Chayil
Eishes Chayil, a woman of strength, of value. The song on repeat repeat repeat as this skirt is being cut, pocked, crotch created. These lines of poetry viscerally cut me and I feel alive. The memory of this same tune in many...
Who Am I?
Who am I A view into my blurry reflection/ ( ווער בין איך? אן אנטפלעקונג פון א פארצייטישע שפיגל) פון וואנעט קום איך און פון וואנעט אויפגעשפראצט? פון וואו ציען זיך מיינע ווארצלען און וואוהין האב איך זיי איבערגעלאזט? איך קום פון א שאכטל אינגאנצן פארמאכט, איך בין ווי אן...
A Peek Under The Shpitzl
פאנטאזיעס פון ישעי' געצעלע דער שכן... אונטער דיין שפיצעלע וויל איך געבן א קיצעלע עס וואונדערט מיר אן א שיעור וואס דארט באהאלט איז יענע ארט ווארעם אדער קאלט? איז עס א שטאט אדער א וואלד? איך וויל געוואור ווערן באלד. טאמער קוקן מען טאר איז מיר אומקלאר. טוט מען...
Goodbye and Good Luck
An excerpt from Grace Paley's short story of that name. Adapted by Amy Coleman, directed by Esther Hafner. This one is a charmer, in Paley's most Yiddishlekh style.
Next Stop
In Lockdown with Esther and Henry Written by Amy Coleman and directed by Gera Sandler, this 24 minutes of mayhem and madness is a perfect reflection of the times we live in. My favorite section is the bit about whom is going to take out the kitty litter.
Labor Of Life
I've been nagging about Hanoch Levin for over two years, and we keep staging the two plays in our repertoire continuously. Here is our latest staging of The Labor Of Life. Oberon Press has just released a 3 volume anthology of his plays. Hopefully this will spur...
Toyt Fun A Seylsman
NYR's Drama Desk nominated production. Moshe Yassurs"s brilliant direction embodied Arthur Miller's original conceptualization of this play as a vision playing out in Willy Loman's s skull. Nominated for best revival and best actor, Moshe deserved a nod as best...
Awake And Sing
From left to right: Ronit Asheri, Moshe Lobel, Lea Kalisch, David Mandelbaum and Eli Rosen. (Photo: Pedro Hernandez) "A heartbreaking and gorgeous Yiddish version of the classic American play that wrestles with economic disparity in Depression-era New...
Caraid O’Brien on Yiddish theatre’s influence on Ionesco.
The photo is from our production of "Rhinoceros." Caraid was absolutely hilarious in the role of Mrs. Boeuf. She also appeared in both NYR productions of "God Of Vengeance," AQs well as a fine actress, she is a translator, author, and as you can see, a good...
Moshe Yassur on Ionesco
Moshe Yassur directed our production of Rhinoceros and throughout his long career had occasion to meet and work with Ionesco on more than one occasion. At an early rehearsal he reveals to the cast Ionesco's view on theater of the absurd. A more detailed history of...
Moshe Yassur on the future of Yiddish theater
Moshe Yassur is is a Yiddish theater national treasure. For NYR he directed the ground breaking Yiddish world premiere of "Waiting For Godot," the drama desk nominated "Toyt Fun A Seylsman," "Rhinoceros," among others. His work for NYR helped establish the company as...
Interview With The Yiddish/Chasidish guru of “Unorthodox”
“As a corporate lawyer stuck in an unhappy and unfulfilling environment, I felt that my creative soul was dying. David believed in me and gave me my first break. And my second. And my third. And then a funny thing happened—I started believing in myself, too. And soon...
Take Away Spring
Gera Sandler put to gether this memorial of the Warsaw ghetto uprising using Zvi Kolitz's "Yosl Rakover Speaks To God "interspersed with song and poetry, From left to right: Macha Fogel, Eli Rosen, Gera Sandler, David Mandelbaum, Amy Coleman, Ronit Asheri-Sandler....
Di Froyen
A new play in yinglish by Melissa Weisz and Malky Goldman
Melissa and Malky talk about the journey they took in creating this important drama about one woman’s struggle for the right to reunite with her children.By forcing the women in her family to face their demons she gives them the courage and resolve to stand up for the rights of women within the Chasidic community.
A refuge for refugees
A concengtragtion camp that sheltered Jews from asll over Europe.
I asked an Italian journalist from Calabria to write up this article for Yom Hashoa. Here is the story she sent in.
Ferramonti Camp: a history of peaceful coexistence in Calabria, during the Second World War.
By Aurelia Zucaro
June 1940. Calabria, province of Cosenza, in the very south of Italy, far from the real political and economic decisions of the country, stood the Ferramonti di Tarsia: the first and largest internment camp for foreign Jews in Italy.
Bubbe Maises באבע מעשות
August 7, 2019
My grandmother was a child of war and terror. As a young child in 1940’s Jerusalem, first under Ottoman Rule, then under the British Mandate she was kept indoors and hidden from sight. She was my great-grandmother’s miracle baby and my great-grandparents did everything in their power to keep her safe and fed.
Unorthodox
Fortunately, the creators of this series produced a compelling and sensitive work. It is a transformation more than an adaptation. Thanks to the wonderfful work by our own Eli Rosen as consultant in all things Yiddish , the painstaking effort by the creative team to accurately depict the Satmar Hasidic community in every detail, including the Yiddish dialect spoken by the actors, is a testament to their sincerity and empathy.
Language War
אין א גרינעם רעגנדיגער דינסטאג זיץ איך מיר אזוי אנגענעם און באקוועם אונעם בית בכבוד. איך צינד זיך אן מיין מוזיק אויפן העכסטן, אוודאי פארשטייט זיך נאר אונם אויער, קיינער טאר דאך נישט הערן וואס איך הער דא – און איך רוה זיך אביסל אפ פון א פילע טאג קלאצן. ווען פלוצלינג הער איך א הויכן קול וואס רופט מיין נאמען, איך מאך שנעל שטילער מיין מוזיק און איך פרעג, ווער איז עס דארט? הער איך דעם קול ענטפערן, עס איז מאמי – זאג נאר קינד מיינס, איז אלעס און ארדענונג? איך שטיי שוין דא 5 גאנצע מינוט און איך שריי דיין נאמען אבער
gunkel
One of my favorite characters. Gunkel, from Hanoch Levin's Labor Of Life.
Assimilated Amy
Now that I, along with the rest of the world am on lock down, it seems a perfect time for me and members of The New Yiddish Rep to get serious about blogging. Here goes.
My husband David Mandelbaum, the force behind The New Yiddish Rep just moments ago asked me to set up my username and password for this site.
The Big Bupkis
Photo Source: George Xenos Review: Backstage Shane Bertram Baker's one-man show, written with director Allen Lewis Rickman, may claim to be a guide for gentiles, but it really instructs his primarily Jewish audience on how a Missouri goy came to be fluent in...
Memories of Marsha P. Johnson
A friend of mine called me about a month ago. She said she’d been scrolling through her news feed and read something she thought I might find interesting . ”Guess who the Governor is naming a Brooklyn park after? ” She asked.
It took me only a minute or two to hit on the answer. ”Marsha P. Johnson. Am I right? “
“Yes , you are”, my friend confirmed.
I first met Marsha in the late 1980s at The Theater for The New City, when we were both beginning rehearsals for a Hot Peaches musical.
אהין און אהער
צושטרויבלט בין איך אינגאנצןצושטרויבלט בין איך אינגאנצן
איך וואק אהין
איך וואק אהער
ארום און ארום
On Authenticity in Film
What is authenticity? This is not the question I thought I'd be wrestling with right now as I sit at my new home-away-from-home inside my home with thoughts of spread and infection rate and essential workers and PPE all swirling around in my brain like viral particles...
Death Of A Salesman
These are Lomans fit to bruise some hearts: the exhausted Willy (Avi Hoffman), whose determined delusions have ceased to fool even himself; the doggedly buoyant Linda (Suzanne Toren), his fiercely, fretfully protective wife; Biff (Mr. Kahn), their golden child turned ne’er-do-well, who long ago lost faith in his father; and Happy (Lev Herskovitz), the placating younger son, who inherited more of Willy’s weak character than he may know.
Yosl Rakover Speaks To God
It Came to Life, This Legend of Death
“In one of the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, preserved in a little bottle and concealed among heaps of charred stone and human bones, the following testament was found, written in the last hours of the ghetto by a Jew named Yosl Rakover.”
The Six Feet Between Us
I would drink in your giggles, noticing how your mouth closes mid-smile.
I would change my plans if you were coming over.
I would get that shirt you like pressed for our night out.
Awake And Sing
Jewwis Telegraphic Agency A classic play sounds more American when it is performed in Yiddish. Go figure. BY ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL DECEMBER 5, 2017 12:19 PM Actors appearing in "Awake and Sing!" from left to right: Ronit Asheri, Moshe Lobel, Lea Kalisch, David...
The Labor Of Life
A post-modern classic by Hanoch Levin, a couples recurring life pattern, in a never ending cycle of existential crisis. Levin has been called the Israeli Beckett and is Israel’s greatest playwright to date. And yet his work is virtually unknown in the United States. We produced thius play in both the original Hebrew and in a splendid Yiddish translation by Eli Rosen. We will be reviving it this month at our studio theater.
The Whore From Ohio
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Waiting For Godot
On a recent Friday evening, I was sitting in Manhattan’s Castillo Theatre, on West 42nd Street, waiting to see a production of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.”
God Of Vengeance
Questions of guilt and retribution gnaw ceaselessly at the heart of Yankl (Shane Baker), the central character in Sholem Asch’s “God of Vengeance,” which is being given a timely revival by the New Yiddish Rep at LaMaMa. A pious Orthodox Jew, Yankl makes his living in what remains a highly unorthodox profession: He owns a brothel that sits below the apartment in which his family lives.
