Rec­om­mend­ed Reading

JBC Book­shelf: Thomashef­sky Inspired Edition

Nao­mi Firestone-Teeter
April 7, 2011

Post­ed by Nao­mi Firestone-Teeter

Inspired by last night’s incred­i­ble per­for­mance of The Thomashef­skys: Music and Mem­o­ries of a Life in the Yid­dish The­ater at the New York Phil­har­mon­ic, here’s a round-up of books that explore the Yid­dish the­ater (plus, one by Bessie Thomashef­sky herself):

Star­dust Lost: The Tri­umph, Tragedy, and Mishugas of the Yid­dish The­ater in Amer­i­ca, Ste­fan Kan­fer (2006, Knopf)

The Moscow Yid­dish The­atre, Ben­jamin Har­shav; Bar­bara Har­shav (2007, Yale Uni­ver­si­ty Press)

Mes­si­ahs of 1933: How Amer­i­can Yid­dish The­atre Sur­vived Adver­si­ty through Satire, Joel Schechter (2008, Tem­ple Uni­ver­si­ty Press)

Shake­speare on the Amer­i­can Yid­dish Stage , Joel Berkowitz (2002, Uni­ver­si­ty of Iowa Press)

Mayn lebens geshikhe : di lay­den un frey­den fun a Idish­er sar arise (or view here), Bessie Thomashef­sky (1916, Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan Library)


Orig­i­nal­ly from Lan­cast­er, Penn­syl­va­nia, Nao­mi is the CEO of Jew­ish Book Coun­cil. She grad­u­at­ed from Emory Uni­ver­si­ty with degrees in Eng­lish and Art His­to­ry and, in addi­tion, stud­ied at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don. Pri­or to her role as exec­u­tive direc­tor and now CEO, Nao­mi served as the found­ing edi­tor of the JBC web­site and blog and man­ag­ing edi­tor of Jew­ish Book World. In addi­tion, she has over­seen JBC’s dig­i­tal ini­tia­tives, and also devel­oped the JBC’s Vis­it­ing Scribe series and Unpack­ing the Book: Jew­ish Writ­ers in Conversation.

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