Ester Rokhl Kaminska and the legitimization of Yiddish theatre

ABSTRACT

Ester Rokhl Kaminska (1870–1925) was the star of the Warsaw Yiddish theatre scene. She began her acting career in the early 1890s, performing shund (cheap) operettas in small, itinerant troupes. In 1905 she established a theatre in Warsaw with her husband, in which she served as leading actress and manager, until her death. She belonged to the first generation of Yiddish theatre artists who introduced the medium of theatre into Eastern European Jewish society and facilitated its legitimization. After her death, colleagues and critics designated her as “the mother of Yiddish theatre.” In this article, I investigate the motherly image of E. R. Kaminska. I argue that this image was not merely a matter of nostalgic yearning for a beloved actress in the golden age of Yiddish theatre. It was Kaminska herself who, while playing a variety of mothers’ roles in the course of her career, formulated her own multilayered, motherly, public image. Her mothers’ roles, to my mind, had a wide-reaching effect not only on Kaminska’s acting career, but also on the canonization of Yiddish theatre altogether, as they turned the theatre – the very medium in which they were created – into an acceptable art form, suitable for a respectable bourgeois Jewish audience.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Shelly Zer-Zion is a lecturer in theatre at the University of Haifa. Her fields of interest are Jewish and Hebrew theatre and cultural history. She has published numerous articles on these fields in Journals such as Forum Modernes Theater (2004), Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe (2006), Criticism and Commentary (2009) (Hebrew), Naharaim (2013), Aschkenas (2015). Her book Habima in Berlin: the Institutionalization of a Zionist Theatre was published in 1915 by Magnes press (Hebrew). A German version of the book was published in 2016 by Fink Verlag. She is a co-editor of the volume Habima: New Studies on National Theatre (Resling Press 2017 (Hebrew).

Notes

1. The last name of Ester Rokhl was Kaminski. The Polish feminine declension of the name is “Kaminska.” In the article, I usually refer to her in the acceptable Polish declension, namely “Kaminska.” However, when the name appears in a citation as “Kaminski” – I remained faithful to the citation.

2. All translations of Yiddish texts are my own, unless otherwise is noted.

3. See for example: Steinlauf (1995); Steinlauf (2003); Sandrow (1996); and Dauber and Berkowitz (2007).

4. Halitza is the ceremony wherein the brother of a deceased man releases his widow from having to marry him in order to ensure the continuation of the family line, leaving her free to marry another man.

5. On the cultural habitus of German-Jewish Bildung and its implications in Eastern Europe see, for example, Shavit (2009).

6. On the bourgeois tradition of German theatre see Zer-Zion (2015); On the influence of enlightenment on Yiddish dramatic writing see: Dauber and Berkowitz (2007).

7. John Klier argues that there was no clear reason for the Czarist ban on Yiddish theatre. He believed it was just another way to harass the Jewish population. Soviet Yiddish theatre critic Nokhem Oyslander, on the other hand, argues, that the wandering troupes threatened, by their very refusal to settle and to accept the social order (Klier 2003; Oyslender 1940).

8. See also: Alroey (2008).

9. On shund and the status of Yiddish theatre: Steinlauf (2003); Steinlauf (1995); and Sandrow (1996).

10. Stern discusses the portrayal of Jewish mothers in popular Yiddish cinema, while outlining the conflicts embodied in the maternal roles they assumed. Antler stresses the generation gap in an era of migration and social change. An echo of these conflicts can be seen in this play as well, although it refers to the European world (Antler 2007; Stern 2013).

11. The centrality of Kaminska's role as Mirele Efros is evident in her biography written by Zalmen Zylbercweig. He devoted a chapter to the reviews of her acting in this role. However, references to the centrality of the role appear also throughout the entire book (Zylbercweig 1969, 73–86; Turkow-Grudberg 1953, 166–240).

12. I refer to the social performative repertoire and its introduction into the stage of the theatre, in light of Diana Taylor's observation (Taylor 2003).

13. In his book about Peretz and the Yiddish theatre, Mukdoyni delineates Peretz and his literary circle as the model of his desired theatre, rather than the theatre of Kaminska, which was rooted in the working-class milieu (1949).

14. On Kaminska’s visit to the United States see Zylbercweig (1969, 124–178) and Alter (2002).