Jewish Theatre: A Global View

Edna Nahshon is Professor of Hebrew at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and a Senior Associate at Oxford University's Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. A recognized authority on Jews and performance she is the recipient of prestigious academic grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Memorial Foundation, YIVO and the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, and the American Academy for Jewish Research. In her many publications she has focused on Yiddish theatre in America, the representation of Jews in late nineteen and early twentieth century theatre, and the nexus of religion and theatrical performance. Her books include: Yiddish Proletarian Theatre: The Art and Politics of the Artef, 1925-1940 (1998), From the Ghetto to the Melting Pot: Israel Zangwill's Jewish Plays (2005), and Jews and Shoes (2008). She is currently working on a book titled Countering Shylock that examines Jewish responses to Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

All those interested in theater, Jewish history and literature, and perfomance theory.

Introductory Essay: What is Jewish Theatre?, Edna Nahshon
SECTION ONE - THE WORLD OF YIDDISH
1. Ritual Space as Theatrical Space in Jewish Folk Theatre, Ahuva Belkin
2. Jacob Gordin’s Dialogue with Tolstoy: Di Kreytser Sonata (1902), Barbara Henry
3. Isaac Bashevis-Singer’s Attitude to the Yiddish Theater as Shown in His Works, Nathan Cohen
SECTION TWO - BETWEEN JEWS AND POLE
4. Józio Grojseszyk: A Jewish City Slicker on the Warsaw Popular Stage, Michael C. Steinlauf
5. The Polish Shulamis: Jewish Drama on the Polish Stage in the Late 19th–Early 20th Centuries, Anna Kuligowska-Korzeniewska
SECTION THREE - NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES IN ENGLISH, ITALIAN AND GERMAN
6. Jewish Languages and Jewish Characters in Giovan Battista Andreini’s Lo Schiavetto, Paola Bertolone
7. “The Christian will turn Hebrew”: Converting Shylock on Stage, Shaul Bassi
8. Philosemitism on the London Stage: Sydney Grundy’s An Old Jew, Edna Nahshon
9. Jewish Self-Presentation and the “Jewish Question” on the German Stage from 1900 to 1930, Hans-Peter Bayerdörfer
10. Popular Jewish Drama in Vienna in the 1920s, Brigitte Dalinger
SECTION FOUR - PRESENCE AND ABSENCE IN THE AMERICAN THEATRE
11. On Arriving Front and Center: American Jewish Identity on the American Stage, Ellen Schiff
12. Generational Shifts in American Jewish Theatre, Linda Ben-Zvi
SECTION FIVE - PERFORMING THE HOLOCAUST/DEBATING ISRAEL ON STAGE
13. Staying Ungooselike: The Holocaust and the Theatre of Choice, Robert Skloot
14. Job’s Soul and Otto Weininger’s Torments: Jewish Themes in the Theatre of Hanoch Levin and Yehoshua Sobol, Freddie Rokem