Join the Institute in-person at 617 Kent Hall on Monday, October 28, at 6:00 PM for a discussion with Amanda Miryem-Khaye Siegel, co-editor of Women on the Yiddish Stage, and Caraid O’Brien, contributing author.
The integration of women into public Jewish performance (Yiddish-language theater by 1877 and Hebrew-language theater by about 1918) was a revolution in modern Jewish culture. While a great deal of seasoned Yiddish-speaking male talent preexisted theater in the form of cantors, choristers, and tavern singers, East European Jewish women had no experience participating in public Jewish performance. From the theater’s first days, women assumed positions of authority, security, and visibility in great numbers. Rapidly, by the 1890s, when the center of the Yiddish theater shifted from cities throughout Romania and the Russian Empire where it first launched in the late 1870s to cities across the globe — including London, Buenos Aires, and New York City by the turn of the century — substantial numbers of female Yiddish actors enjoyed celebrity on par with their male counterparts. Women on the Yiddish Stage presents an array of scholarly essays that challenge the existing historical accounting of the modern Yiddish theater; highlight pioneering artists, creators, and impresarios; and map sources and methodologies of this rich area of forgotten history.
Amanda Miryem-Khaye Seigel is a Yiddish singer, songwriter, actor, recording artist and scholar in Yiddish music and culture who “exemplifies the attempt to bring a centuries-old language and culture into the contemporary world” (New York Times). She has performed internationally and released a CD of original and adapted Yiddish songs called "Toyznt tamen=A thousand flavors" in 2015. Miryem-Khaye is co-editor (with Alyssa Quint) of Women on the Yiddish Stage (Legenda, 2023) and a member of the Digital Yiddish Theatre Project. Visit http://www.memkhes.com for more information.
Caraid O'Brien has been translating and performing the plays of Sholem Asch since her debut production of God of Vengeance "set Show World aflame" according to the Village Voice in 1999. She has received three new play commissions from the Foundation for Jewish Culture and was commissioned by Theater J and Solas Nua in DC to write The Rabbi's House, her adaptation of Sholem Asch's Ibsen inspired drama Rabbi Doctor Silver. She was a 2019 Translation Fellow at the Yiddish Book Center and Sholem Asch Underworld Trilogy, her translation of three Asch plays was published by White Goat Press. Caraid co-curated the theater section of Yiddish: A Global Culture, the permanent exhibit at the Yiddish Book Center and studied Yiddish theater history and performance with legendary Yiddish actors Luba Kadison and Seymour Rexite. caraidobrien.com
Supported by the generosity of the Radov and Kaye families.
While all IIJS events are free and open to the public, we do encourage a suggested donation of $10.