ERC > LEXICON OF THE YIDDISH THEATRE  >  VOLUME 5  >  ISRAEL KAMAI


Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre
BIOGRAPHIES OF THOSE WHO WERE ONCE INVOLVED IN THE Yiddish THEATRE;
aS FEATURED IN zALMEN zYLBERCWEIG'S  "lEKSIKON FUN YIDISHN TEATER"


VOLUME 5: THE KDOYSHIM (MARTYRS) EDITION, 1967, Mexico City

 

Israel Kamai
 


 

K. was born in 1900 in Vilna, Polish Lithuania.

He started acting in local Yiddish dramatic circles when he was very young. Afterwards he became a professional actor. He took part in the Vilna Troupe with Yosef Kamien, Eliosha Shteyn, Jacob Weislitz, Avraham Marevsky et al. He acted with the Nathan family in Austria, with Celia Adler when she was a guest-actress in the large cities of Europe, and afterwards with the troupe of Ida Kaminska, until the outbreak of the Second World War.

In 1936 he participated in a tour with Simkha Nathan.

In 1939 he returned to Vilna, and when the community Yiddish State Theatre (with Khaim Grade as the literary leader) opened there, he joined them. His last role was "Rubenchik" in Sholem Aleichem's "200,000."

He was evacuated to Russia after the Nazi assault on Soviet Russia. In 1945 he joined a Yiddish cooperative theatre in Samarkand named for Moshe Lipman. Here he acquired tuberculosis and died on 17 January 1946.


Sh. E. from Israel Segal and Yehoshua Borodov, and
Sh. E. from his brother T. Kamai.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 5, page 4095.
 

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