Theater

In the late Middle Ages Yiddish theatre existed only as folk plays based on the story of Esther and were performed by amateur groups, mainly on Purim (Purim spiels). It was only in the late 1800s, after the Enlightenment reached Eastern Europe that professional Yiddish theatre developed.
Modern Yiddish theater was founded by Avram Goldfaden who created the first professional troupe in Iaşi in 1876. Goldfaden was born in Russia and lived in many parts of Europe and the United States, but his reputation as a founder of modern Jewish theater was closely linked to Romania, where oppression against Jews was more moderate than in Russia. In addition, the warmer climate was an element that favored the appearance of the theater in summer gardens, as was the case of the first Yiddish theater in Iaşi that functioned at the Green Tree garden.
Collaborating with musicians Israel Grodner and Issachar Goldstein of the "Broder Singers", Goldfaden created his first troupe. At the beginning, it was a little company playing in the style of the Italian commedia dell’arte that toured constantly performing in theaters and cafes with shows that relied heavily on the elements of song, slapstick, and spectacle. Apart from Iaşi, where the troupe was founded, it stayed in Botoşani, Galaţi, Braĭla and Bucharest.
Goldfaden served not only as the troupe’s manager but also its author, composer, set designer and director. Among his most popular plays were Di tsvey Kuni-Leml (The Two Kuni-Lemls first performed 1880), Di kishefmakherin (first performed 1880; The Sorceress, and Bar Kokhba (first performed 1883). Goldfaden's plays formed a canon of Yiddish theater, and were performed for over fifty years.
Two years after the troupe was founded, there were already several rival troupes in Bucharest, founded by former members of Goldfaden's troupe. The most important among them was the troupe of Israel Grodner, who aspired to create a realistic theater.
A new phase in the life of Jewish theater in Romania started in 1917, when Iacob Sternberg, the
poet and theater director, settled in Bucharest determined to create a cultural theater and together
with Iacob Botoshansky founded an avant-garde project - The Yiddish Theater of Bucharest.

After World War I, there was a permanent professional company in Bucharest directed by Isidor Goldenberg that presented works from the classic Yiddish repertoire, a sophisticated Yiddish cabaret theater (kleynkunst), and travelling companies that staged lighter entertainment. Besides, two Yiddish theaters operated in Cernăuți, one in Iași and one in Cluj.
In 1923 the famous Vilner Trupe was invited to perform in Bucharest and brought the ideas of Konstantin Stanislavski to Romania. The troupe stayed in Romania until 1927, and Sternberg was its artistic director. Due to his interest in modernism, the Vilner Trupe became an avant-garde theater with innovative perspectives on directing and staging.
Determined to pursue both Goldfaden's spirit, and the innovative spirit of I.L.Peretz, who claimed that the new Jewish culture must represent the Jewish people’s aesthetic and moral aspirations, and the Jewish theater must be similar to European theater art, in 1930 Sternberg created another successful studio - Bukareshter Yidishe Teater-Studiye - BITS. Housed in Bucharest's Jewish quarter of Văcărești, BITS played a prominent role in the development of modern trends in Jewish European theater.
In the autumn of 1940, when Ion Antonescu came to power, the new racist legislation he promoted stipulated the removal of Jewish artists from all performing arts institutions, situation that applied to other professional categories as well. Failure to comply with these decisions could led to severe sanctions, from substantial fines to imprisonment in the Târgu Jiu camp. Despite this situation, following some steps taken by a group of Jewish artists in the fall of 1940, on March 1, 1941, the Barașeum Jewish Theater was born.
The Baraşeum created a place of employment for more than two hundred Jewish artists and intellectuals. The Romanian authorities permitted the Baraşeum to stage Jewish plays in Romanian only. Besides, all members of the theater staff had to be Jews and refrain from any form of protest or political statement.
During the war years, the Baraşeum building that was used from the early 1930s as a Yiddish-language theater, became the seat building of the Jewish theater, and premiered over thirty productions in Romanian, about half of them directed by Sandu Eliad.  Its repertoire included Romanian translations of classic Yiddish plays, new pieces, and plays by authors like Offenbach and Verneuil.
On August 23, 1944, the overthrow of Antonescu, led to the re-legalization of the use of the Yiddish language. The initiative to reopen Yiddish theaters after August 23, 1944, belonged to the actors, and the first performance in Yiddish, Nacht-Tog (Night-Day) took place in Botoşani, the town where in 1876 Goldfaden had presented one of the first professional Yiddish productions, the first in an indoor theater.
As the Communists progressed towards full domination in Romanian, they favored IKUF (Idisher Kultur Farband) which held values similar to their ideologues. In July 1945 the IKUF (Jewish Cultural Association) established in Bucharest a new Yiddish theater led by Iacob Mansdorf. The theater's first production was Moşe Pincevski's new play Ich Leb (I Live), about resistance in a forced labor camp, relevant to the audiences and their experiences during the war, was a success.
The IKUFJewish theater was nationalized on August 1, 1948 and became Teatrul Evreiesc de Stat, TES(The State Yiddish Theater). The Romanian authorities forced all previous Yiddish theater troupes to unite, forming an ensemble of 110 actors.
From 1948 to 1954 Teatrul Evreiesc de Stat, TES (The State Jewish Theater), located in the Baraşeum building, was directed by Bernard Lebli and Uri Benador as artistic director, and from 1955 to 1987 by Franz Auerbach, Iancu Gluck and Israil Bercovici as artistic director. The first production on the new stage was Dos togbukh fun Anna Frank (The Diary of Anne Frank) by Frances Goodrich with Lia Konig as Anne Frank.
In 1949 a State Jewish Theater was founded in Iaşi  and directed by Iso Schapira and Itic- Swartz- Kara, and had a rich activity until it was closedin 1964.
TES promoted an ambitious artistic program including in its repertoire, classical Yiddish plays, masterpieces of world theater, modern works with Jewish themes, and anti-Zionist plays during the Stalinist period. The TES repertoire included also a series of plays in Yiddish dealing with the Holocaust written by Ludovic Bruckstein, a survivor of Auschwitz. With Bruckstein's plays, the Jewish theatre initiated a kind of dramatic reflection on the Holocaust and Jewish life in post World War II in Romania , at a time when this art form did not exist in any other country.
Another remarkable attempt to raise awareness of Jewish issues in Romania was made by Alexandru Mirodan in Contract special de închiriat oameni (Special Contract for Renting People; 1971), a play about the effects of anti-Semitism in an imaginary town where only one Jew is left. However, after the Communist regime prevented the play from being staged in Romania, it was published in Israel.
TES has survived the fall of communism in 1989. Today, it still operates as a public institution, is one of the few symbols of what was once a large Jewish community, and one of the few professional Yiddish theaters left in Europe.
Yiddish Theatre: New Approaches, ed. Joel Berkowitz, Oxford, 2003
Yisroel Berkovitsh, Hundert yor yidish teater in Rumenye, 1876–1976 , Bucharest, 1976, Romanian translation, 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, Bucharest,1998
Nicolae Cajal and Hary Kuller, eds. Contribuția evreilor din România la cultură şi civilizație, București, 1996