Zalmen
Zylbercweig was the editor of the six-volume "Leksikon
fun yidishn teater (Lexicon of the Yiddish
Theatre)", a compendium of more than 2,800
Yiddish-language biographies and histories of
those once involved in some way with the Yiddish
theatre.
The first
volume of the Lexicon was published in New York
in 1931, the sixth in Mexico City in 1969.
Zylbercweig had completed work on a seventh
volume, but due to his untimely death in Los
Angeles in 1972, this final volume was never
published and remains in galley form within
various repositories around the world.
Zylbercweig had been
working on another book about the Yiddish
theatre, more specifically a Yiddish-language
history of Maurice Schwartz's famed New York
"Yiddish Art Theatre" troupe. The galleys for "Yiddish Art
Theatre in America" also lies as
galleys within various repositories
around the world, until now "never seeing the
light of day", so to speak.
The unpublished book entitled "The Yiddish Art Theatre in America" (referred
heretofore as "YATA"), is that it is a history
of Schwartz's Yiddish Art Theatre as it was during
its first six years of existence, i.e. from 1918 to 1924. Within YATA there exists some
seven hundred and forty-two pages, yet it is unknown
whether there is more to this book. Inquiries have
been made to another repository to see if more pages
do exist, and if so and they can be obtained, they
will be added to what the Museum currently presents
to you.
photo,
right: Zalmen Zylbercweig, 1941. |
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At the virtual
Museum of Family History, we are making these book
galleys available to you in the hope that it will
keep the memory alive of those once involved in the
Yiddish theatre. It is hoped that these two works will
help you -- perhaps in your research of the Yiddish
theatre, or perhaps simply to give you a glimpse
into the history of the once-popular Yiddish
theatre. This is part of the mission of the Museum
of Family History, i.e. to keep alive the memory and
enhance the appreciation of Jewish culture, not only as it
once existed, but as it exists today. The Museum
also wishes to honor the memory of Lexicon editor
Zalmen Zylbercweig who had dedicated himself
wholeheartedly to the preservation of Jewish culture
and the history of the Yiddish theatre.
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Within these two books,
each made available to you as single PDF
files, you may search among their many pages for
information you are interested in. In "YATA", you
may read about nearly one hundred of the YAT
productions and many reviews that were written by critics and
others in newspapers, journals and books. Both
aforementioned books are in Yiddish, so be
forewarned. A project to translate into English the
seven volumes of the "Lexicon" is underway at the
Museum. These translations will go online as the
project proceeds. The availability of these
translations will be announced at some time in the
near future.
In the unpublished
Volume 7 of the "Lexicon", you may read more than
one hundred and twenty biographies, mostly of
individuals once involved in the Yiddish theatre.
photo,
left: Graphic design representing the "Leksikon
fun yidishn teater".
Drawing of playwrights Jacob Gordin,
bottom left, and Abraham Goldfaden,
upper right.
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Notes on "YATA"
As these pages come from
galleys that haven't had a final proofreading, i.e. not from any published book, you will
find imperfections within some of the pages, e.g.
missing or inverted page numbers, the occasional
inverted piece of text or the missing photograph.
Additionally, past PDF page 265, the page numbering
changes, e.g. the first page after page 265 is
labeled "2-F". There are also a number of missing
pages, but this is unavoidable for the time being.
If you would like to
learn more about Maurice Schwartz's Yiddish Art
Theatre, the Museum encourages you to visit its webpage of YAT
productions ("Casts
and Characters") which includes a listing
of most of the plays performed by the troupe. This
may serve as a finding aid or guide for you in your
quest to learn more about the YAT. These listings
include the name of each play (given in both English
and transliterated Yiddish), the date of the first
performance, the author of the play, the names and
functions of those who worked behind-the-scenes, and
the theatre location. Also included are listing of cast
members and their roles for more than seventy
percent of the more than one hundred YAT
productions. You will also enjoy seeing photographs
of the actors in their roles, as well as scenes from
plays, during your visit to the "Casts and
Characters" page. Listings of more of the YAT
productions will be added over time. It should be
mentioned that although the aforementioned
Zylbercweig unpublished book discusses only the
first five seasons of the YAT, this list is
all-encompassing.
As mentioned above, the Museum is
in the process of translating the more than 2,800
individual biographies as found within Zylbercweig's
"Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre". There are six
volumes that have been published to date (in New
York City, Warsaw and Mexico City) between the years
of 1931 and 1969. There are also galleys of parts of
an unpublished seventh volume. A database, currently
non-searchable by the public, has been created for
these seven volumes. Hopefully an online, searchable
database will be created in the future so that you
may personally do a search. It should be noted that
the captions to the many photographs found within
these seven volumes have already been translated,
but are also not yet online or searchable by you.
This non-searchable database of more than
2,800 individual names (and more than fifty
theatrical organizations) include the following
information:
Surname, given name, other name(s), town and country
of birth, and date of birth and death. Also for each
entry, there exists two page numbers: one is the
page number on which the biography begins within the
original hardcover Yiddish version of the book; the
other is the beginning page number of the biography
as it exists on the PDF file, which makes it
infinitely more easy to locate a particular page. It
is hoped that at some time in the future, a free,
searchable online database can be created so you
needn't contact the Museum whenever you have an
inquiry.
Look for an announcement
about the availability of the English translation for
hundreds of individual biographies from
Zylbercweig's "Lexicon" at some time in the near
future.
Most importantly, the
Museum is seeking volunteers to assist in the
translations from Yiddish to English, of both YATA
and the seven volumes of Zylbercweig's "Lexicon". If
you are interested in volunteering, please contact
the Museum at
yiddishtheatre@museumoffamilyhistory.com.
As the Museum does not and cannot pay people to
translate these biographies, it relies on volunteers
to do the many translations.
To view Zylbercweig's
"Yiddish Art Theatre in America", please click
here.
*** It is important to note that the speed of
any potential download of this 180 MB PDF file will
vary, depending on your computer. Fully downloading
this file may take ten minutes or longer. Also the
PDF search function on this file does not search
Hebrew/Yiddish fonts, and it will only be useful, in
this instance, to search for a particular page
number as found within the original Yiddish book. If
you have any questions about any of the content of
these two volumes, please contact the museum with
your specific request.
To view Zylbercweig's
seventh volume of his "Lexicon of the Yiddish
Theatre", please click
here. This file
is 130 MB in size.
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