![Israil Bercovici in 1980](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Israil_Bercovici_in_1980.jpg)
Israil Bercovici (, yi, ישראל בערקאָװיטש; 1921–1988) was a
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
ish
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
n dramaturg, playwright, director, biographer, and memoirist, who served the
State Jewish Theater of Romania between 1955 and 1982; he also wrote
Yiddish-language
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
poetry.
Biography
Bercovici was born into a poor working-class family in
Botoşani, Romania, and received a traditional Jewish education. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
he served time at hard labor until the arrival of the
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
Army in Romania.
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
Romanian may refer to:
*anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania
**Romanians, an ethnic group
**Romanian language, a Romance language
*** Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language
** Romanian cuisine, tradition ...
, Yiddish and
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
. Bercovici edited the Yiddish section from 1970 to 1972.
As a literature student after the war at a secular secondary school in
Bucharest
Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of ...
, 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
Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ...
aesthetic for Yiddish-language theater.
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
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
's
Arbeter Teater Farband (ARTEF, "Workers' Theatre Society"), goals well-aligned with those of the Communist regime.
Bercovici translated works from world literature:
Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Friedrich Dürrenmatt (; 5 January 1921 – 14 December 1990) was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant-g ...
's ''Frank V'' (1964),
Karl Gutzkow
Karl Ferdinand Gutzkow ( in Berlin – in Sachsenhausen) was a German writer notable in the Young Germany movement of the mid-19th century.
Life
Gutzkow was born of an extremely poor family, not proletarian, but of the lowest and most meni ...
's ''
Uriel Acosta
Uriel da Costa (; also Acosta or d'Acosta; c. 1585 – April 1640) was a Portuguese philosopher and skeptic who was born Christian, but returned to Judaism and ended up questioning the Catholic and Rabbinic Judaism, rabbinic institutions of his ti ...
'' (1968), and
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playw ...
's ''
The Master Builder
''The Master Builder'' ( no, Bygmester Solness) is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.
It was first published in December 1892 and is regarded as one of Ibsen's more significant and revealing works.
Performance
The play was published ...
'' (1972), and wrote his own Yiddish-language plays, including ''Der goldener fodem'' ("The Golden Thread", 1963), about
Abraham Goldfaden
Abraham Goldfaden (Yiddish: אַבֿרהם גאָלדפֿאַדען; born Avrum Goldnfoden; 24 July 1840 – 9 January 1908), also known as Avram Goldfaden, was a Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in the languages Yid ...
(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.
In 1976 he directed a celebration of 100 years of Yiddish theatre in Romania, which included not only performances of his own work but also those of Goldfaden and
Sholem Aleichem
)
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Pereiaslav, Russian Empire
, death_date =
, death_place = New York City, U.S.
, occupation = Writer
, nationality =
, period =
, genre = Novels, sh ...
.
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
University Library in Potsdam.
Works for theater
The following list is drawn from Bercovici's own history of Yiddish theater in Romania (
ercovici 1998. The list may be incomplete; many of Bercovici's works were musical and folkloric
revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own duri ...
s and some were reworkings of
Purim
Purim (; , ; see Name below) is a Jewish holiday which commemorates the saving of the Jews, Jewish people from Haman, an official of the Achaemenid Empire who was planning to have all of Persia's Jewish subjects killed, as recounted in the Boo ...
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 Kon
Henech Kon or Henryk Kon (9 August 1890 – 20 April 1972) was a Polish composer and cabaret performer.
Kon was born in Łódź to a Chassidic family, and sent at the age of 12 to his grandfather in Kutno, where he studied Torah but also studied w ...
, and Simha Schwartz; a 1976 production of "The Golden Thread" credits additional music by Adalbert Winkler.
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
Ahasuerus ( ; , commonly ''Achashverosh'';; fa, اخشورش, Axšoreš; fa, label=New Persian, خشایار, Xašāyār; grc, Ξέρξης, Xérxēs. grc, label=Koine Greek, Ἀσουήρος, Asouḗros, in the Septuagint; la, Assuerus ...
"), December 30, 1959.
* ''Ciri-biri-bom'', cowritten with Aurel Storin, Moişe Bălan, Malvina Cohn, December 30, 1960.
* ''Oaspeţi în Oraş'' / ''Ghest in ştot'' ("Guests 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'' ("Dance, Poetry and Song Show"), April 7, 1963.
* ''Spectacol de umor şi folclor muzical evreiesc'' / ''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 String of Pearls"), 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
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
poetry, March 5, 1968.
* ''Mangheriada'', based on the poems of
Itzik Manger
Itzik Manger (30 May 1901, Czernowitz, then Austrian-Hungarian Empire – 21 February 1969, Gedera, Israel; yi, איציק מאַנגער) was a prominent Yiddish language, Yiddish poet and playwright, a self-proclaimed folk bard, visionary, a ...
, April 6, 1968.
* ''Baraşeum '72'', February 5, 1972. (''Baraşeum'' was the old name of the future State Jewish Theater, honoring Jewish culture promoter, Dr.
Iuliu Barasch
Iuliu Barasch or Baraş (17 July 1815 – 31 March 1863) was a Galician-born Jewish physician, philosopher, pedagogue and promoter of Romanian culture and science who made his career in Romania. He played a leading role in disseminating the ideas ...
.)
* ''Scrisori pe portativ'' ("Letters on a
"), August 16, 1975.
Published works
Bercovici published three major books of Yiddish poetry:
* (1974, "In the Eyes of a Black Coffee") Published in Romanian translation in 1991 as .
* (1978, "Sparks Over Generations")
* (1984, "Flying Letters")
In addition, Bercovici and Nana Cassian translated into Romanian the work of Yiddish-language poet
Itzik Manger
Itzik Manger (30 May 1901, Czernowitz, then Austrian-Hungarian Empire – 21 February 1969, Gedera, Israel; yi, איציק מאַנגער) was a prominent Yiddish language, Yiddish poet and playwright, a self-proclaimed folk bard, visionary, a ...
. A volume of these translations was published in 1983 as ("Jewish ballads that have gone from gray to blue").
He also published on the history of the Yiddish Theatre in Romania:
* (1973)
* (1976, 100 years of Yiddish Theatre in Romania) Published in Romanian translation in 1982 as .
References
* Dalinger, Brigitte
English-language_review_of_[Groezinger,_2003/nowiki>.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Groezinger, 2003
">English-language review of [Groezinger, 2003
/nowiki>">/nowiki>Groezinger, 2003">English-language review of [Groezinger, 2003
/nowiki>fro
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). . The first Romanian edition was 1982, Editura Kriterion :ro: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.
External links
Israil Bercovici books
in the Yiddish Book Center
The Yiddish Book Center (formerly the National Yiddish Book Center), located on the campus of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States, is a cultural institution dedicated to the preservation of books in the Yiddish language, a ...
collection (in Yiddish)
See also
* List of Jewish Romanians
This is a list of Romanian Jews who are or were Jewish or of Jewish ancestry.
Academics
* Aaron Aaronsohn, botanist
* J. J. Benjamin, historian
* Martin Bercovici, energy engineer
* Randolph L. Braham, political scientist, historian
* Nicolae ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bercovici, Israil
1921 births
1988 deaths
Yiddish theatre
Yiddish-language poets
Moldavian Jews
Jewish Romanian writers
Jewish socialists
Romanian theatre directors
Romanian dramatists and playwrights
Romanian male poets
Romanian memoirists
Romanian biographers
Male biographers
People from Botoșani
20th-century Romanian poets
20th-century Romanian dramatists and playwrights
Male dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Romanian male writers
20th-century memoirists