OH MAMA, I’M IN LOVE! THE STORY OF THE YIDDISH STAGE
A self-paced course in YIVO’s Shine Online Educational Series. Join leading scholars of Yiddish theater as they trace the history of Jewish performance in 25 lecture videos and discussions. Explore Yiddish theater as a global phenomenon through images and playbills from more than 20 countries. Discover the impact that Yiddish theater continues to have on popular entertainment today.
Search the collections at the Center for Jewish History
Center for Jewish History: General Information
Lillian Goldman Reading Room
Ackman and Ziff Family Genealogy Institute
For more information on Jewish performing arts, please visit the following digital projects and academic institution archives:
Dance:
Jerome Robbins Dance Division (NYPL) Digital Collections
Music:
American Society for Jewish Music
Dartmouth College Jewish Sound Archive
Florida Atlantic University Libraries: Recorded Sound Archives: Judaic Collection
Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jewish Music and Research Center
Milken Archive of Jewish Music
National Library of Israel: Music Collection & Sound Archive
Penn Libraries: Robert and Molly Freedman Jewish Sound Archive
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research: Sound Archive and Music Archive
Theatre:
Billy Rose Theatre Division & Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at NYPL
Harvard Yiddish Theater Collections
Performing the Jewish Archive: Jewish Music & Theatre Online
A Tradition of Talent: Jewish Opera Singers and the Patterns That Shaped Their Careers
Samantha M. Cooper (CJH Dr. Sophie Bookhalter Graduate Fellow in Jewish Culture 2020-2021) presents the first extended investigation into the patterns that shaped the trajectories of numerous men and women of Jewish descent who pursued careers as opera singers in New York between 1880 and 1940. Specifically, she attends to how the outsized frequency of name-changing, connections with the synagogue cantorate, performances for Jewish organizations, recordings in Jewish languages, networking with Jewish musicians, impact of the Holocaust, and dedication to the State of Israel shaped these singers' professional lives in particularly Jewish ways.
Hereville: A Nu Musical
Based on the award-winning (and 2023 JewCie-Award-nominated) Hereville graphic novels by Barry Deutsch, this female-driven, family-friendly musical follows Mirka, an 11-year-old girl in a small Orthodox Jewish town. When Mirka meets a witch in the woods, she triggers a series of events that force a reckoning with the memory of her mother, her fractious relationship with her stepmother, and a meteor that could destroy Hereville altogether!
Arthur Miller: American Witness
Join author John Lahr and MacArthur Prize-winning playwright Sarah Ruhl for a conversation about this new biography in Yale University Presss Jewish Lives series. Organized around the fault lines of Miller's life—his family, the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, Elia Kazan and the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Marilyn Monroe, Vietnam, and the rise and fall of Miller's role as a public intellectual—this book demonstrates the synergy between Arthur Miller's psychology and his award-winning plays, All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible.