Israil (Israel) Bercovici (1921–1988) served the State Jewish Theater of Romania as a dramaturg, playwright, director, and historian from 1955 to 1982; he also wrote Yiddish-language poetry. 1921 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... 1988 is a leap year starting on a Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Teatrul Evreiesc de Stat (TES, the State Jewish Theater) in Bucharest, Romania is a theater specializing in Jewish-related plays. ... 1955 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1982 is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Yiddish (Yid. ...

Bercovici was born into a poor working-class family in Botoşani, Romania, and received a traditional Jewish education. During World War II he served time at hard labor until the arrival of the Soviet Army in Romania. Botoşani (population:129,000) is a city in Bukovina, Moldavia, Romania and it is the capital of the Botoşani County. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km (over 11 miles) into the air, August 9, 1945 after the Allied atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ... The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (Russian: (СССР)   listen?; tr. ...

After the war, he began his career in Yiddish-language newspapers and radio, notably the weekly IKUF-Bleter (1946–1953), and the Revista Cultului Mozaic din R.P.R. (Journal of Jewish Culture in the People's Republic of Romania, also known as Tsaytshrift). The Journal was launched in 1956 and had sections in Romanian, Yiddish and Hebrew. Bercovici edited the Yiddish section from 1970 to 1972. Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by 6 million people mainly in Israel, parts of the Palestinian territories, the United States and by Jewish communities around the world. ...

As a literature student after the war at a secular secondary school in Bucharest, Bercovici published his first Yiddish-language poetry in IKUF-Bleter. Judging by theater reviews he wrote in the early 1950s, he appears to have been an ardent Communist, grateful for his liberation from the labor camp and for the opportunity to receive a secular education, advocating a socialist realist aesthetic for Yiddish-language theater. Bucharest (population 2. ... Stalin as an Organiser of the October Revolution by Karp Trokhimenko Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style of realistic art which has as its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism. ...

His affiliation with the State Jewish Theater began in 1955, initially as "literarischer Sekretär". He continued to be very aware of developments in theater beyond the Yiddish language: he drove the theater toward being a contemporary theater, rather than a mere museum of inherited plays. Elvira Groezinger compares his goals to those of New York City's Arbeter Teater Farband (ARTEF, "Workers' Theatre Society"), goals well-aligned with those of the Communist regime. Midtown Manhattan, looking north from the Empire State Building, 2005 New York City (officially named the City of New York and abbreviated NYC) is the most populous city in the United States, and is at the center of international finance, politics, communications, music, fashion, and culture. ...

Bercovici translated works from world literature: Friedrich Dürrenmatt's Frank V (1964), Karl Gutzkow's Uriel Acosta (1968), and Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder (1972), and wrote his own Yiddish-language plays, including Der goldener fodem ("The Golden Thread", 1963), about Abraham Goldfaden (who in 1876 founded the world's first Yiddish-language theater, in Iaşi, Romania), and the musical revue A shnirl perl ("A Pearl Necklace", 1967). He also wrote books about Yiddish theater history. Friedrich Dürrenmatt (January 5, 1921 – December 14, 1990) was a Swiss author and dramatist. ... Karl Ferdinand Gutzkow (17 March 1811 - 16 December 1878) was a German writer notable in the Young Germany movement of the mid-19th century. ... Uriel Acosta (1585–1640) was a philosopher from Portugal. ... Henrik Johan Ibsen (March 20, 1828–May 23, 1906) was an extremely influential Norwegian playwright who was largely responsible for the rise of the modern realistic drama. ... The Master Builder (Norwegian: Bygmester Solness) is a play by Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. ... Abraham Goldfaden Abraham Goldfaden (July 24, 1840 – January 9, 1908), born Abraham Goldenfoden (first name alternately Avram, Avron, Avrohom, Avrom, or Avrum, last name alternately Goldfadn; the Romanian spelling Avram Goldfaden is common) was a Russian-born Jewish poet and playwright, author of some 40 plays. ... 1876 is a leap year starting on Saturday. ... Map of Romania showing Iasi Iaşi (also known as Jassy) is a city and a county (see Iasi (county)) in north-eastern Romania, in the historic region of Moldavia. ...

Toward the end of Bercovici's career, in Romania, as elsewhere in Europe, Yiddish was a language in decline. The State Jewish Theater coped, in part, by installing headphones throughout the theater to allow simultaneous translation of the plays into Romanian; the system is still in use when the theater performs Yiddish-language plays today.

Bercovici's 3000-volume Yiddish-language library is now part of the Universitätsbibliothek Postdam.

Israil Bercovici claims that the Danse Macabre originated among Sephardic Jews in 14th century Spain (Bercovici, 1992, p. 27). This article is about La Dance Macabre, the late-medieval allegory. ... In the strictest sense, a Sephardi (ספרדי, Standard Hebrew Səfardi, Tiberian Hebrew Səp̄ardî; plural Sephardim: ספרדים, Standard Hebrew Səfardim, Tiberian Hebrew Səp̄ardîm) is a Jew original to the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal: ספרד, Standard Hebrew Səfárad, Tiberian Hebrew Səp̄áraḏ / Səp̄āraḏ), or whose ancestors were among the Jews expelled from...

Works for theater

The following list is drawn from Bercovici's own history of Yiddish theater in Romania ([Bercovici 1998]). The list may be incomplete; many of Bercovici's works were musical and folkloric revues and some were reworkings of Purim plays. The music for most of Bercovici's plays was composed by Haim Schwartzmann; "The Golden Thread" also uses music by Avram Goldfaden, whom the play is about. Schwartzmann and Eugen Koffler contributed music for A Pearl Necklace and Baraşeum '72; Mangheriada used music by Schwartzmann, Koffler, Dubi Seltzer, Henech Cohn, and Simha Schwartz; a 1976 production of "The Golden Thread" credits additional music by Adalbert Winkler. A revue is a theatrical entertainment based around music with dancing and sketches or skits either on contemporary news or the venue or base of the theatre company concerned, such as college or medical school. ... Purim (פּוּרִים Lots, Standard Hebrew Purim, Tiberian Hebrew Pûrîm: plural of פּוּר pûr Lot, from Akkadian pūru) is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Persian Jews from the plot of the evil Haman to exterminate them, as recorded in the biblical Book of Esther. ...

The list contains Romanian-language titles and Yiddish-language titles with Romanian phonetic transcription. Some works had only a Romanian language title; when titles in both languages are given by Bercovici, the Romanian title precedes the Yiddish. Unless otherwise noted, the date given is that of first performance by the State Jewish Theater.

• Revista revistelor ("Revue of revues"), December 15, 1958.
• Un cîntec şi o glumă / A lid mit a viţ ("A Song and a Joke"), April 15, 1958.
• O revistă cu Ahaşveroş ("A revue with Ahasuerus"), December 30, 1959.
• Ciri-biri-bom, cowritten with Aurel Storin, Moişe Bălan, Malvina Cohn, December 30, 1960.
• Oaspeţi în Oraş / Ghest in ştot ("Guest in the City"), April 15, 1961.
• O seară de folclor evreiesc / An ovnt fun idişn folklor ("An evening of Yiddish Folklore"), October 4, 1962.
• Cu cîntec spre stele / Mit a lid ţu di ştern ("With a Song to the Stars"), February 13, 1963.
• Purim-şpil ("Purim play"), March 24, 1963.
• Recital de dansuri, versuri şi cîntece ("Recital of dances, verses, and songs"), April 7, 1963.
• Spectacol de umor şi folclor musical evriesc / Idişer humor un musicakişer folklor ("Yiddish humor and musical folklore")
• Firul de aur / Der goldener fodem ("The Golden Thread"), October 25, 1963.
• Un şirag de perle / A şnirl perl ("A Pearl Necklace"), April 2, 1967.
• Amintiri de revelion / Nai-iur-zihroines ("New Year's Memories"), December 31, 1967.
• Cîntarea cîntărilor ("Song of Songs"), an experimental Romanian-language theater piece, based on Hebrew poetry, March 5, 1968.
• Mangheriada, based on the poems of Itzik Manger, April 6, 1968.
• Baraşeum '72, February 5, 1972. (Baraşeum was the old name of the theater that became the State Jewish Theater.)
• Scrisori pe portativ ("Letters on a Musical Staff"), August 16, 1975.

December 15 is the 349th day of the year (350th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... April 15 is the 105th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (106th in leap years). ... Ahasuerus or Ahasverus (Hebrew אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ, Standard Hebrew Aḥašveroš, Tiberian Hebrew ʾĂḫašwērôš) may be: the name under which king Xerxes I of Persia is known in the Bible the Wandering Jew This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... December 30 is the 364th day of the year (365th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 1 day remaining. ... December 30 is the 364th day of the year (365th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 1 day remaining. ... April 15 is the 105th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (106th in leap years). ... October 4 is the 277th day of the year (278th in Leap years). ... February 13 is the 44th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... March 24 is the 83rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (84th in Leap years). ... April 7 is the 97th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (98th in leap years). ... October 25 is the 298th day of the year (299th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 67 days remaining. ... 2 April is the 92nd day of the year (93rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 273 days remaining. ... December 31 is the 365th day of the year (366th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family spoken by 6 million people mainly in Israel, parts of the Palestinian territories, the United States and by Jewish communities around the world. ... March 5 is the 64th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (65th in leap years). ... April 6 is the 96th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (97th in leap years). ... February 5 is the 36th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... In musical notation, the staff or stave is a set of five horizontal lines on which note symbols are placed to indicate pitch and time. ... August 16 is the 228th day of the year (229th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ...

Poetry

Bercovici published three major books of Yiddish poetry: [1]

• In di oygn fun a shwartser kawe (1974, "In the Eyes of a Black Coffee")
• Funken iber doyres (1984, "Sparks Over Generations")
• Fli'endike oysjes (1984, "Flying Letters")

In addition, Bercovici and Nana Cassian translated into Romanian the work of Yiddish-langauge poet Itzik Manger. A volume of these translations was published in 1983 as Balada evreului care a ajuns de la ceneşiu la albastru ("Jewish ballads that have gone from gray to blue").

References

• Dalinger, Brigitte, English-language review of [Groezinger, 2003] from All About Jewish Theatre.
• Bercovici, Israil, O sută de ani de teatru evreiesc în România ("One hundred years of Yiddish/Jewish theater in Romania"), 2nd Romanian-language edition, revised and augmented by Constantin Măciucă. Editura Integral (an imprint of Editurile Universala), Bucharest (1998). ISBN 9739827225. The first Romanian edition was 1982, Editura Kriterion. There also was a 1976 edition, also from Editura Kriterion, in Yiddish: Hundert ior idiş teater in Rumenie. Bercovici did his own translation into Romanian.

Further reading

• Groezinger, Elvira, Die Jiddische Kultur im Schatten der Diktaturen—Israil Bercovici (2003, in German, title means Jewish Culture in the Shadow of the Dictators—Israil Bercovici), Philo, ISBN 3825703134.

See also

• List of Jewish Romanians