Yiddish Language and Literature Commons^™

Stages Of Belonging: The Yiddish Art Theatre’S Search For Its Home In New York City, 1918-1934, Octavia Chudnow

Lawrence University Honors Projects

In the first decades of the twentieth century, the main form of entertainment for the Jewish immigrant community was shund (trash) theater: popular and commercial theater. Although many immigrants enjoyed this kind of entertainment, playwrights, artists, and intellectuals critiqued its place in immigrants’ lives, especially since shund revealed the process of assimilation and was considered low-brow art. In 1918, Maurice Schwartz opened the Yiddish Art Theatre to create high-brow art for Jewish audiences. In my essay, I focus on the company’s history between 1918 and 1934, on the theater’s move from downtown to Midtown and back to the Lower East …