Three Yiddish Plays by Women: Female Jewish Perspectives, 1880-1920

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Description

This is an unprecedented collection of three newly translated Yiddish plays written by women in the period from 1880 to 1920. Taken together, these plays provide a fascinating insight into female Jewish perspectives on a range of womens issues prevalent at the time and, in some cases, still prevalent today. The works explore topics such as the Jewish law of the chained widow, pregnancy out of wedlock, and birth control, amongst many others. Three Yiddish Plays by Women includes an incisive contextual introduction which provides historical context for each individual work, summaries and discussion of the texts and stage histories for two of the three that have them. The introduction offers biographical information about each playwright and looks at what ambit they were each active in, taking into consideration gender norms. It also engages an array of recent sources and angles on intersecting questions of theater and gender in a landmark volume of vital significance to students of womens history, modern Jewish history, cultural history and theatre history.

Author Bio

Alyssa Quint is a writer based in New York City, USA. She is a Visiting Fellow at Yeshiva University, USA and Associate Editor at Tablet Magazine. She is the author of The Rise of the Modern Yiddish Theater (2019), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and a finalist for the Jordan Schnitzer Award. She is also the editor of two forthcoming volumes on the Yiddish theater - Women on the Yiddish Stage and Avrom Goldfadens Shulamis: a Critical Edition. She is a contributing editor of the online Digital Yiddish Theater Project and a curator of a number of exhibits at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research where she served as senior scholar for many years. Miryem-Khaye Seigel is a Yiddish singer, songwriter, actor and researcher in Yiddish culture who 'exemplifies the attempt to bring a centuries-old language and culture into the contemporary world' (New York Times). A fluent Yiddish speaker, Miryem-Khaye has performed, lectured and taught at Klez Kamp, Klez Kanada, Yiddish New York, Yiddish Australia , Seminarium jezyka i kultury jidys (Poland), and La Kehile (La Comunidad Ashkenaz de Mxico), among others. Shes performed with New Yiddish Rep, Hankus Netskys Hebrew National Salvage, the Folksbiene (National Yiddish Theatre), and shared the stage with many other luminaries of the Yiddish and klezmer scene. By day, she is a librarian in the Dorot Jewish Division, New York Public Library, where her research specialties include Yiddish language and culture and American Jewish history. She is co-author (with Dr. Stephen D. Corrsin and Kenneth Benson) of the NYPL book Jews in America: From New Amsterdam to the Yiddish Stage (2012), as well as frequent research blogs and articles in English and Yiddish. She completed advanced Yiddish studies at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, where she also received the Joseph Kremen Memorial Fellowship for her research project 'The Broder Singers: Forerunners of the Yiddish Theater'. She released her first CD of original and adapted songs, 'Toyznt tamen=A thousand flavors', in 2015.