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Goldfaden, born Goldenfodem, is the father of Yiddish theater. He was born in 1840 in the town of Alt-Konstatin, in the Volynia region of Russia. He had a traditional education as well as a maskilic one - he studied Russian, German and other subjects which had been forbidden until the Haskalah [Jewish Enlightenment of the late 18th and 19th century]. He began to write poetry and small dramatic pieces and organized the first Yiddish theater troupe in Romania in 1876. He wrote many plays which became immediate classics and were included in Yiddish theater repertory until today such as Tsvey Kuni Lemel [pictured below], Shulamis, Bar Kokhba. The actors of his early troupes became the leading actors in all of Yiddish theater, most of them settling in America. Goldfaden came to New York to be among them in 1903. He received great honor but died a poor man in 1910. |
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