Yiddishpiel (combination of "Yiddish" and "spiel" - "play"), is a
Yiddish theatre
Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satire, satiric or nostalgic revues; melodr ...
in
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...
,
Israel
Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
. The
theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a Stage (theatre), stage. The performe ...
was established in 1987 at the initiative of former Tel Aviv mayor
Shlomo Lahat
Shlomo "Chich" Lahat (; November 9, 1927 – October 1, 2014) was a major general in the Israel Defense Forces and former Head of the Manpower Directorate. He served as the eighth mayor of Tel Aviv in 1974–1993, for four consecutive terms. Afte ...
, Chairman of
Mercantile Discount Bank
Mercantile Discount Bank () is a major commercial bank in Israel and is a subsidiary of Israel Discount Bank. It is the sixth-largest bank in Israel.
Controversies Involvement in Israeli settlements
On 12 February 2020, the United Nations ...
Moshe Noiderfer, and Shmuel Etsyon, who also served as its chairman and artistic director until November 2011, when he was replaced by Sasi Keshet.
Yiddishpiel's main goals are to commemorate and keep
Yiddishkeit
Yiddishkeit, also spelled Yiddishkayt (, i.e. "a Jewish way of life"), is a term that can refer broadly to Judaism or specifically to forms of Orthodox Judaism when used particularly by religious and Orthodox Ashkenazi. In a more general sense, it ...
alive. The theater has a regular audience, most of which consists of relatively old people. The theater's offices are located on Carlebach Road 7, Tel Aviv.
In 1996, the
Knesset
The Knesset ( , ) is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Israel.
The Knesset passes all laws, elects the President of Israel, president and Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister, approves the Cabinet of Israel, cabinet, and supe ...
approved a bill establishing a national authority for Yiddish and
Ladino
Ladino, derived from Latin, may refer to:
* Judeo-Spanish language (ISO 639–3 lad), spoken by Sephardic Jews
*Ladino people, a socio-ethnic category of Mestizo or Hispanicized people in Central America especially in Guatemala
* Black ladinos, a ...
(Judeo-Spanish) culture, whose role is to create a strong base for the two languages and their cultures in Israel.
Since its establishment, the theater has performed 42 productions in front of large audiences in Israel and in other countries. Throughout the years, the theater has performed in Israeli festivals as well as important foreign festivals and has taken the stage in
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden (; ) is the capital of the German state of Hesse, and the second-largest Hessian city after Frankfurt am Main. With around 283,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 24th-largest city. Wiesbaden form ...
,
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
,
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...
,
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
,
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
,
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
, and
Vilnius
Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...
.
The theater has a wide selection of actors, including veterans such as
Yaakov Bodo and
Yaakov Alperon
Yaakov Alperon (; February 18, 1955 – November 17, 2008) was an Israeli mobster, head of the Alperon criminal family, which became one of the largest organized crime syndicates in Israel, until his assassination by car bomb in 2008.
Biograph ...
, and younger actors, who serve as the successors of Yiddish theater and culture, among them
Dudu Fischer, Gadi Yagil,
Anat Atzmon
Anat Atzmon (; born 27 November 1958) is an Israeli actress and singer.
Biography
Atzmon was born and raised in Tel Aviv. She is the daughter of the theater actor Shmulik Atzmon. In her childhood her father exposed her to the Yiddish culture.
...
, , Jonathan Rozen,
Yoni Eilat
Yoni Eilat (; November 5, 1975) is an Israeli actor and singer.
Eilat is a graduate of Beit Zvi, the Academy of Performing Arts in Israel. He has been performing since 2001 in different theater productions, children's plays and musicals. He is bes ...
, and Amitai Kedar. Actor Carol Marcovicz also performed at Yiddishpiel until his death in 2006.
Repertory plays by a variety of
playwrights
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between characters and is intended for theatrical performance rather than just
reading. Ben Jonson coined the term "playwrigh ...
are brought to the stage at the theater. Throughout every play, there are
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
and
Russian
Russian(s) may refer to:
*Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*A citizen of Russia
*Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages
*''The Russians'', a b ...
subtitles, as well as audio, for the benefit of those who do not speak Yiddish.
In each theatrical season, Yiddishpiel presents four new plays, one per quarter. Some of the plays presented are by playwrights such as
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
,
Moliere, and others, translated into Yiddish; other plays are adapted into Yiddish (by
Shalom Aleichem
''Shalom aleichem'' (; , ) is a greeting in the Hebrew language. When someone is greeted with these words, the appropriate response is (, ). The term is plural, but is still used when addressing one person.
This form of greeting is traditio ...
and others); and others are local plays (by
Yehoshua Sobol
Yehoshua Sobol, sometimes written Joshua Sobol (; born 24 August 1939), is an Israeli playwright, writer, and theatre director.
Biography
Yehoshua Sobol was born in Tel Mond. His mother's family fled the pogroms in Europe in 1922 and his father' ...
and others).
Prizes
*The "Entertainment Award of the Year" 2010 for the play "Sparkling Stars", chosen as the year's most entertaining play by members of the academy of the Israeli Theater Prize of 2010.
*"Comedy of the Year" 2001 for the play "Golden Youth" by Neil Simon, chosen as the year's best comedy by members of the academy of the Israeli Theater Prize of 2001.
*The "Theater Prize" of 1999, for the theater's work in promoting and enhancing Israeli theater, given by Shim'on Peres.
*"Keren Klor Prize" 1998, given to the theater at the president's residence Jubilee to the Independence of Israel party for bringing Yiddish theater into the lives of the Israeli audience and the elderly.
*"
Itzik Manger Prize
The Itzik Manger Prize for outstanding contributions to Yiddish literature (, ) was established in 1968, shortly before Itzik Manger's death in 1969. Manger "was and remains one of the best-known twentieth-century Yiddish poets." The Prize has bee ...
" 1997, given to the theater for their original plays in Yiddish.
References
Further reading
*
External links
Yiddishpiel official website
{{coord, 32.0733, N, 34.7710, E, source:wikidata, display=title
1987 establishments in Israel
Theatres in Israel
Theatres in Tel Aviv
Yiddish culture in Tel Aviv
Yiddish theatre