Read Stardust Lost: The Triumph, Tragedy, and Meshugas of the Yiddish Theater in America Online
Authors: Stefan Kanfer
O Nicholas! Alas! Alas!
My grandfather coughed in your army
Hid in a wine-stinking barrel
For three days in Bucharest,
Then left for America
To become a king himself.
The Yiddish press did much to promote the regal notions of opportunity and status, of social and legal justice, of business and professional careers. But it was the Yiddish Theater that gave those ideas three dimensions and a human voice. It's all very well to recall the long list of performers and writers, designers and directors shaped by the ambitious immigrants—men and women who invented themselves and their art while the world watched.
But the Lower East Side housed more than entertainers. It contained a nation within a nation, a people who were transformed by America, and who then fanned out across the country to work their own changes wherever they settled down. Those alterations and modifications continue today, in politics, society, and the arts.
And so, although six generations have passed since Abraham Goldfaden's self-described “hodge-podge” astonished onlookers at the Green Tree in Jassy, Romania, the curtain has still to be lowered. The lights have not gone out. The stardust is not lost. Scattered to the winds, perhaps—but lost? Never.
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