Women in the Performing Arts: Molly Picon
by J.D. Arden, M.L.I.S. candidate, Reference Services Research Intern, Center for Jewish History
The transition of the performance industry of America from stage to film was difficult for many to manage. One of the most beloved Jewish American actresses who managed that transition successfully was Molly Picon. We all remember her as the elderly but impish Yente…
Out of the Archives
Yiddish Artists Relax in the Catskills, circa 1938
by Rachel Harrison, Processing Archivist, Center for Jewish History
The Adler Family Papers (P-890) at the American Jewish Historical Society contain a wealth of photos of figures from the heyday of the American Yiddish theater, from the 1880s and running to the 1970s. These include Jacob P. Adler, the patriarch of the…
Women in the Performing Arts
Bertha Kalich: Star of the New York Stage
by J.D. Arden, M.L.I.S. candidate, Reference Services Research Intern, Center for Jewish History
Above image: Yiddish theater poster for Bertha Kalich in Midway at Irving Place Theatre. c/o American Jewish Historical Society.
Bertha Kalich was born in 1874 in Lemberg in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia, what is today Lvov, Ukraine….
Purim Party at Ludwig Satz’s House in Sea Gate, Brooklyn, ca. 1925. American Jewish Historical Society.
Yiddish Theater actors, among them Celia Adler, at a Purim party. The Purim party took place at Ludwig Satz’s house in Sea Gate Brooklyn, ca. 1925. The boy in front is the son of Celia Adler and Lazar Freed (also a Yiddish theater actor). From the Celia Adler…
Molly Picon in Bublitchki
Year: 1938
Type: Photograph
Repository: American Jewish Historical Society
Moshe Leib-Halpern had this to say about Yiddish theater in America:
“There was once a vulgarian who went to synagogue … when he wanted to weep, and to a bawdyhouse … when he wanted to be gay. But once, when he wanted to weep and be gay at the…