The Gold Diggers (Aleichem play)

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Di goldgreber (The gold diggers) is a play by Sholem Aleichem, in the tradition of Yiddish theatre. Originally called The Treasure in its earlier incarnation, Aleichem changed the title after another play appeared with the same name. [1] The subject is a comedy of shtetl life thrown into chaos by rumours of Napoleonic gold having been buried in the Jewish cemetery. [2] The Polish State Jewish Theatre revived the play, using the original title The Treasure, in 1949.

Sholem Aleichem Yiddish author and playwright

Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, better known under his pen name Sholem Aleichem, was a leading Yiddish author and playwright. The musical Fiddler on the Roof, based on his stories about Tevye the Dairyman, was the first commercially successful English-language stage production about Jewish life in Eastern Europe. The Hebrew phrase שלום עליכם literally means "[May] peace [be] upon you!", and is a greeting in traditional Hebrew and Yiddish.

Yiddish theatre genre in theater

Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revues; melodrama; naturalist drama; expressionist and modernist plays. At its height, its geographical scope was comparably broad: from the late 19th century until just before World War II, professional Yiddish theatre could be found throughout the heavily Jewish areas of Eastern and East Central Europe, but also in Berlin, London, Paris, Buenos Aires and the New York City.

Shtetl type of Jewish market town

A shtetl was a small town with a large Jewish population, which existed in Central and Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. Shtetlekh and shtetls were mainly found in the areas that constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Austrian Galicia and Romania.

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References

  1. Jacob Weitzner Sholem Aleichem in the Theater 0838636365- 1994 Page 42 "Although Sholem Aleichem was easily influenced, and willingly accepted criticism, he refused to bury The Treasure in a ... and Sholem Aleichem decided to avoid confusion and call the second and final version of his play The Gold Diggers."
  2. Joel Berkowitz, Barbara Henry Inventing the Modern Yiddish Stage 2012 Page 147 "which premiered in July 1934, was Weichert's version of Sholem Aleichem's Di goldgreber (The gold diggers), about a shtetl that goes berserk searching for gold, allegedly hidden in the cemetery by Napoleon"