In a last-ditch effort to get you to see our show, Avrom Sutzkever’s NIGHT STORIES: 4 Tales of Reanimation (brought to you by the same team that brought you last year’s hit BASHEVIS’S DEMONS: 3 Tales by Isaac Bashevis Singer), I’m sharing a mildly embarrassing article from the online journal Unpacked.
Before we get to the actual article, however, I’ll explain why it’s a little embarassing and why it’s a little bit wrong. It throws my name about pretty liberally and casts me as a ‘savior’ of Yiddish and prophet of its revival. As we know from Rokhl Kafrissen’s work over the past couple decades, Yiddish culture isn’t being revived. It’s here, it’s being shared generation to generation, and it’s not going anywhere. And while I, as a Gentile, make an interesting figurehead for the (non)revival, I’m merely one of many, many who are carrying the culture forward.
And yet, here’s a bit of the speech I’m giving audiences each night after our curtain call, something I didn’t bring up in this article:
By my count, there are currently 8, yes, count them, EIGHT Yiddish theater companies in New York.
There’s the Yiddish National Theater, which is not to be confused with the National Yiddish Theatre (yes, it’s a bit like a Monty Python sketch). Now the National Yiddish Theatre is also known as the Yidishe Folksbiene – which is not to be confused with the Yidisher Folksteater! In English, the Yidisher Folksteater is called the Yiddish Public Theatre and it, in turn, is not to be confused with the Joseph Papp (Public) Yiddish Theater. So that’s four.
Now in the early 2000s, the New Yiddish Rep came along. It was founded as an offshoot of the New Worlds Theatre Project. And we mustn’t forget the only for profit Yiddish theater company I’m aware of, Khobzey Inbud, Inc. And, akhron-akhron-khoviv, the newest of the Yiddish theater troupes is GLYK, or Gay Little Yiddish Kolektiv. So there you have 8 Yiddish theater companies.
If you’re like me, Yiddish theater is an essential ingredient for New York City’s New-York-Cityness. For the past … 120? 140? years, there have been Yiddish plays in the season in this city. For our purposes, let’s define “a Yiddish play” as a play in Yiddish. You could even say “at least primarily in Yiddish.” “The season” is trickier. It used to be defined as September or October through May. (Yes, at one point, there were 40 weeks of Yiddish theater in New York City.) Over time, the season got whittled down, and by the time I made it to New York, “the season” meant November through January.
Over the past two years, however, the Congress for Jewish Culture has been the company producing the only runs of Yiddish plays in New York City in the season. In 2024-2025, we brought you BASHEVIS’S DEMONS and – together with Khobzey Inbud – Allen Lewis Rickman’s THE ESSENCE. This season, 2025-2026, we have brought you Sutzkever’s NIGHT STORIES. That’s two seasons in a row where we’ve picked up the ball and kept Yiddish theater going at the time when Yiddish theater has been going in New York since the late 19th century. Make no mistake: we don’t like being alone. More Yiddish theater is better for Yiddish theater. It inspires the audiences. But we’ll do it alone if we have to –– because if there’s one season without Yiddish theater, then there can be a second season without Yiddish theater. And a third. And before you know it, it becomes only a memory.
Maybe next year, we’ll produce something mindless. A frothy concoction to make you forget your cares. Or maybe we’ll find something even more Gothic and chilling. But we’ll be here, serving up Yiddish theater, as long as we can. We invite you to join the cause, helping us to keep the flame lit! Join us for one of the last three performances of our little show. Not for rakhmones, and not merely because it’s tradition, but because it’s a damn good show. Buying a ticket now, or sending a donation, will also help us in bringing you next season’s show, and we hope you’ll join us then, too.
Oh yeah, and here’s that silly article. It’s not entirely silly, though. It does provide a lovely explanation of how we’re carrying the culture forward, and how we are approaching Yiddish theater in this day and age. But every time it says my name, you should probably add in “Miryem-Khaye Seigel, Moshe Yassur, Beate Hein, Rokhl Kaffrisen, Cameron Bossert, and Suzanne Toren.” Oh, and “Allen Lewis Rickman and Yelena Shmulenson” as well.
In the meantime, abi af simkhes (and by simkhes, I mean “in the Yiddish theater!”)
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