Israil Bercovici
Encyclopedia
Israil Bercovici (1921–1988) was a Jewish Romania
n dramaturg, playwright, director, biographer, and memoirist, who served the State Jewish Theater
of Romania between 1955 to 1982; he also wrote Yiddish-language
poetry.
, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Potsdam.
Israil Bercovici claims that the Danse Macabre
originated among Sephardic Jews in 14th century Spain (Bercovici, 1992, p. 27).
s 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.
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.
In addition, Bercovici and Nana Cassian translated into Romanian the work of Yiddish-language 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").
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n dramaturg, playwright, director, biographer, and memoirist, who served the State Jewish Theater
State Jewish Theater (Romania)
Teatrul Evreiesc de Stat in Bucharest, Romania is a theater specializing in Jewish-related plays. Its contemporary repertoire includes plays by Jewish authors, plays on Jewish topics, and plays in Yiddish...
of Romania between 1955 to 1982; he also wrote Yiddish-language
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
poetry.
Biography
Bercovici was born into a poor working-class family in BotoşaniBotosani
Botoșani is the capital city of Botoșani County, in northern Moldavia, Romania. Today, it is best known as the birthplace of many celebrated Romanians, including Mihai Eminescu and Nicolae Iorga.- Origin of the name :...
, Romania, and received a traditional Jewish education. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
he served time at hard labor until the arrival of the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
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 language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, Yiddish and Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
. Bercovici edited the Yiddish section from 1970 to 1972.
As a literature student after the war at a secular secondary school in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, 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
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
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 City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
'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
Friedrich Dürrenmatt 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-garde dramas, philosophically deep crime novels, and often macabre satire...
's Frank V (1964), Karl Gutzkow
Karl Gutzkow
Karl Ferdinand Gutzkow was a German writer notable in the Young Germany movement of the mid-19th century.-Life:...
's Uriel Acosta (1968), and Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen
Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre...
's The Master Builder
The Master Builder
The Master Builder is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was first published in December 1892 and is regarded as one of Ibsen's most significant and revealing works.-Performance:...
(1972), and wrote his own Yiddish-language plays, including Der goldener fodem ("The Golden Thread", 1963), about Abraham Goldfaden
Abraham Goldfaden
Abraham Goldfaden ; was an Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in the languages Yiddish and Hebrew, author of some 40 plays.Goldfaden is considered the father of the Jewish modern theatre.In 1876 he founded in...
(who in 1876 founded the world's first Yiddish-language theater, in Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
, Romania), and the musical revue A shnirl perl ("A Pearl Necklace", 1967). He also wrote books about Yiddish theater history.
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 Potsdam.
Israil Bercovici claims that the Danse Macabre
Danse Macabre
Dance of Death, also variously called Danse Macabre , Danza de la Muerte , Dansa de la Mort , Danza Macabra , Dança da Morte , Totentanz , Dodendans , is an artistic genre of late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one's...
originated among Sephardic Jews in 14th century Spain (Bercovici, 1992, p. 27).
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 revueRevue
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 American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932...
s and some were reworkings of Purim
Purim
Purim is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire from destruction in the wake of a plot by Haman, a story recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther .Purim is celebrated annually according to the Hebrew calendar on the 14th...
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.
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 AhasuerusAhasuerusAhasuerus is a name used several times in the Hebrew Bible, as well as related legends and Apocrypha. This name is applied in the Hebrew Scriptures to three rulers...
"), 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 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 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 HebrewHebrew languageHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
poetry, March 5, 1968. - Mangheriada, based on the poems of Itzik MangerItzik MangerItzik Manger was a prominent Yiddish poet and playwright, a self-proclaimed folk bard, visionary, and ‘master tailor’ of the written word...
, 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.
Poetry
Bercovici published three major books of Yiddish poetry: http://www.hagalil.com/jidish/berko-1.htm- In di oygn fun a shvartser kave (1974, "In the Eyes of a Black Coffee")
- Funken iber doyres (1984, "Sparks Over Generations")
- Fliendike oysies (1984, "Flying Letters")
In addition, Bercovici and Nana Cassian translated into Romanian the work of Yiddish-language poet Itzik Manger
Itzik Manger
Itzik Manger was a prominent Yiddish poet and playwright, a self-proclaimed folk bard, visionary, and ‘master tailor’ of the written word...
. 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").
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 3-8257-0313-4.
See also
- List of Jewish Romanians