Yiddish

Chantshe in America

"Chantshe in America" is a comedy in four acts, written for Yiddish theatre by Nahum Rakow with music by the Lithuanian-born Jewish composer Joseph Rumshinsky (1881–1956).

Deck of Jewish Playing Cards

Fifty-nine cards (one is missing from set), depicting Jewish authors. There are four cards for each author.

Sound Recording: Yiddisha Nightingale

One of Irving Berlin's earliest compositions, preserved on a cylinder recording.

Composed and written by Irving Berlin, "Yiddisha Nightingale" was first recorded by Maurice Burkhardt in 1911.

The Yiddish Lesson

This colorful poster designed by Lionel Kalish offers whimsical cartoons to illustrate the meanings of Yiddish words

One of several "language lesson" posters created during the late 1960s by the American artist Lionel Kalish (b. 1931). Kalish is also notable as a painter and children's book illustrator.

Yiddish Typewriter

This typewriter was used by the Chicago journalist Morris Indritz.

Morris Indritz was born in 1890 in Courland, Russia, now Latvia.

Dina Halpern’s Theater Trunk

This traveling wardrobe belonged to Yiddish theater star Dina Halpern, and is a relic of a time when plays by Sholem Aleichem, S. Ansky, as well as Yiddish translations of Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Wilder were performed on Chicago’s old West Side.

Dina Halpern was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1909. As a child, she performed as a dancer then joined the Warsaw Yiddish Art Theatre, headed by her great-aunt, Esther Rachel Kaminska.