Lives in the Yiddish Theatre
SHORT BIOGRAPHIES OF THOSE INVOLVED IN THE Yiddish THEATRE
aS DESCRIBED IN zALMEN zYLBERCWEIG'S "lEKSIKON FUN YIDISHN TEATER"

1931-1969
 

Borisovo
(Betty Kompaneyets-Rabinovitsh)
 

 

Born in 1900 in Riga, Latvia, as the child of the actor Aba and Leah Kompaneyets. She received an education in Warsaw, where she settled as an adult.

She finished the private school of Froman and took her exams in a governmental gymnasium. She learned Yiddish courses with Nachum Stutshkov, music with the composer Philip Latkovski and Alexander Kompaneyets and ballet in the Teatr Wielki.

Already as a child of six she acted in children's roles in her father's troupe, and in 1914 she switched to adult soubrette roles. In wartime she immigrated with her family to Russia and while there also acted in mother roles.

In 1919 she married actor Leon Rabinovitsh and until their arrival in 1936 in America followed the same stage path as her husband.

In Mexico B. acted in the beginning with the local Yiddish theatre, and after it disbanded with all the guest-starring actors who used to come from time to time to Mexico, or with the local actors who came in from time to time as part of Yiddish productions. B. brought to Mexico in guest roles his brothe-in-law Leonid Sokolov with whom she acted.

 B.'s daughter, Fanya Rabel, is a well-known painter, muralist and artist with metal and woodcuts. She was a member of the Mexico Art Museum, and had a great time(?) participating in the collective organized by the Mexican Bellas Artes across the world. Over a large mural, a newspaper of Jewish history, is especially ordered up  for the Yiddish sports center in Mexico.

B.'s daughter, Melakha Rabel, is a writer and published two novels in Spanish. "Oyf der shvel fun geto" (that was translated for Pinye Katz in Yiddish and published in the Argentinian "press" and in New York's "Morgn freyheyt") and "Shturem oyf teykh plato". It was also in 1946 that she published in "Di prese" in Yiddish an original "travel impression", and in 1960 translated into Spanish N. Bukhvald's book "Theatre". She had a great interest in Yiddish theatre and had in the field kept several longer sessions in Spanish(?).


M. E.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 4, page 2687.
 

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