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In Yiddish. 88, (4) pages. 180 x 125 mm. Wrapers are damaged, see images here, and some leaves are dog eared, but this book was printed on good paper and so, though far from pristine, is still serviceable. It is more than a century old. Jacob Gordin wrote the Yiddish play, Elisha Ben Abuyah in 1906. It was performed unsuccessfully in New York City during Gordin's lifetime, and more successfully in numerous productions after his death. The title role was written for Jacob Adler, the only actor ever to play it. In the 1911 production after Gordin's death, the fallen woman Beata was played by Adler's wife Sara, Ben Abuyah's faithful friend Toivye Avyoini was played by Sigmund Mogulesko, and his daughter (who, in the play, runs away with a Roman soldier) by the Adler's daughter Frances. In some of the last performances of the play, toward the end of Jacob Adler's career, the daughter was played by Frances' younger, and eventually more famous, sister Stella. Elisha ben Abuyah (Avuya) was a rabbi and Jewish religious authority born in Jerusalem sometime before 70 CE. After he adopted a world view considered heretical by his fellow Tannaim and betrayed his people, the rabbis of the Talmud refrained from relating teachings in his name and referred to him as the "Other One" (Acher). In the writings of the Geonim this name appears as "Achor" ("backwards"), because Elisha was considered to have "turned backwards" by embracing heresy. Gordin's Ben Abuyah is clearly a surrogate for Gordin himself, and to some extent for Adler: an unbeliever, but one who thinks of himself, unalterably, as a Jew, and who rejects Christianity even more firmly than Judaism, a man who behaves ethically and who dies haunted by a vision of terrible Jewish suffering, condemned by the rabbis generally, but lauded as a great Jew by his disciple Rabbi Meir. Jacob Michailovitch Gordin (May 1, 1853 - June 11, 1909) was a Russian-born American playwright active in the early years of Yiddish theater. He is known for introducing realism and naturalism into Yiddish theater. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature characterizes him as "the acknowledged reformer of the Yiddish stage." At the time of his rise, professional Yiddish theater was still dominated by the spirit of the early (1886-1888) plays of its founder, Abraham Goldfaden, which derived in no small measure from Purim plays, often spectacles more than dramas; Goldfaden's later works were generally operettas on more serious subjects, perhaps edifying, but not naturalistic. Again quoting the Cambridge History, after his 1892 arrival in New York City, "Gordin took the Yiddish drama in America from the realm of the preposterous and put a living soul into it," bringing it up to the level of "realistic melodrama." Gordin was born in Myrhorod, Ukraine, Russian Empire, and received a liberal though irregular education at home. He was recognized as a reformer and a Russian writer. He had also been a farmer, a journalist, a shipyard worker in Odessa, and, reportedly, an actor. He migrated to New York in July 1891, and tried to make a living writing for Russian-language newspapers and the Yiddish socialist Arbayter Tsaytung (the precursor to the Forverts, The Forward), but his acquaintanceship with the noted Jewish actors Jacob Adler and Sigmund Mogulesko prompted him to try his hand at play-writing. His first play, Siberia, was based on a true story about a man sent as a prisoner to Siberia and who escaped, lived out a normal life for many years, and was then exiled again. Although initially it met a rocky reception (as did his second play, Two Worlds), it was a critical success. His third play The Pogrom in Russia was produced in January 1892 by the actor Boris Thomashefsky. In June 1892, Gordin signed a contract with Jacob Pavlovich Adler, and later that year, for Adler and his troupe, he wrote Der yidisher kenig lir (The Jewish King Lear), loosely adapted from Shakespear. . . . Seller Inventory # 015499
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