Yiddish Theatre in South America (1930-1960): Transnational Networks and Artistic Exchange

Max Weinreich Fellowship Lecture in East European Arts, Music, and Theater The Ruth and Joseph Kremen Memorial Fellowship Admission: Free Watch the video

During the interwar period, a large population of Yiddish-speaking Jews settled in South America, escaping difficult living conditions and antisemitism in Europe. For Jewish immigrants, Yiddish theatre functioned as a meeting place where they could share their mother tongue and deal with the feeling of longing for the “alter heym.” As a result, the major cities of the region—Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago de Chile, and Montevideo—became important Yiddish theatre centers and attractive destinations for Yiddish artists. At the same time, by the 1930s, Yiddish theatre audiences in the U.S. and Europe were starting to decline, so actors increasingly toured countries where Yiddish theatre thrived, as was the case in South America. This multidirectional migratory movement of European Jews during the interwar period and the internationally used language of Yiddish contributed to the creation of an extensive transnational network of Yiddish artists, which allowed them to perform throughout the world.

In this lecture, Dr. Paula Ansaldo will explore the development of the South American Yiddish theatre scene and the connections it established with the main Yiddish cultural centers of the time in the U.S. and Europe and with the larger theatrical ecosystem of South America.

About the Speaker

Paula Ansaldo holds a Ph.D. in History and Theory of Arts from the University of Buenos Aires. She is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the National Council for Technical and Scientific Research of Argentina and the Institute of Performing Arts-UBA, and a member of the Centre of Jewish Studies. She teaches History of Theatre II in the Department of Arts at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature-UBA. She has co-published the book Independent Theatre: History and Present (Buenos Aires: Ediciones del CCC, 2017) and Perspectives on Theater Directing: Theory, History, and Poetics (Córdoba: National University of Córdoba Press, 2021) and several articles on the history of Jewish theatre in Argentina in academic publications of the U.S., Spain, Brazil, France, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Poland, and Argentina. She has received grants from CONICET, Fordham University-New York Public Library, Coimbra Group Universities, American Philosophical Society, and Latin American Jewish Studies Association. She is also the recipient of the 2021-2022 Ruth and Joseph Kremen Memorial Fellowship in East European Arts, Music, and Theater at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.