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Goldfaden, Abraham; Avramovits, M.; Broyda, G. Foreword by M. Zeyfert : A BINTELE BLUMEN: IN FIER THEYLEN

Nyu York [New York]: Ferlag fun Yehuda Katsenelenbogen,, 1896

First edition. Original Printed Wrappers, 8vo, 6, 8, 12, 32 pages ; 26 cm. In Yiddish. Title translates as, “A Bouquet of Flowers: In Four Parts.” Singerman 4953. Contents: 1. “Ale Lider fun Akaydes Yitshak,” fun A. Goldfaden; 2. “Kupleten un Folks Lider,” fun M. Avramovits [Max Avramovich]; 3. “Ale Lider fun Kuzari,” fun Prof. Hurvits; & “Anekdoten,” fun G. Broyda. Abraham Goldfaden, (1840–1908), was a “Yiddish poet, dramatist, composer, and father of the Yiddish theater. Born in Staro Konstantinov, Ukraine, he received not only a thorough Hebrew education but also acquired a knowledge of Russian, German, and secular subjects. To avoid the draft, Goldfaden was sent to a government school at 15 and there came under the influence of his teacher Abraham Ber Gottlober, a Hebrew writer who was also a lover of Yiddish. Graduation from this school in 1857 permitted Goldfaden to enter the rabbinical seminary at Zhitomir, which trained rabbis, teachers, and Jewish officials for government service. Under the guidance of sympathetic teachers, including such leaders of the Haskalah movement as E. Z. Zweifel, H. S. Slonimsky, and Gottlober, he was encouraged to compose Hebrew lyrics. The first of these were published in 1862 in Ha-Meliz. A year later Goldfaden's first Yiddish poems appeared in Kol Mevasser. In 1865 Goldfaden published a booklet of his Hebrew songs Zizim u-Ferahim. In 1866, the year of his graduation as a teacher, his first collection of Yiddish songs Dos Yudele offered rich material for badhanim and folksingers. It was followed by a supplementary booklet Di Yudene (1869). In 1875 he joined a former classmate Isaac Joel Linetzki in founding and editing in Lemberg a short-lived humorous magazine Der Alter Yisrolik. Goldfaden then went to Rumania where he came in contact in Jassy with the Broder Singers, who were singing and acting out Yiddish songs, including his own, in wine cellars and restaurant gardens. He then conceived the idea that the dramatic effect of the songs and impersonations could be heightened if they would be combined with prose dialogues and woven into an interesting plot. He gathered a few singers and rehearsed with them scenarios composed by himself. The first performances in October 1876 initiated the professional Yiddish theater. Encouraged by the enthusiastic reception accorded his performances in Jassy, Goldfaden engaged wandering minstrels and cantors' assistants as additional actors, toured other Rumanian cities, including Bucharest, and then went to Odessa. By 1880 his troupe was giving performances throughout Russia and his phenomenal success was encouraging theatrical ventures by other enterprising actors and librettists. The Yiddish theater expanded and flourished until 1883, when the Russian government, fearing this new mass medium, banned performances in Yiddish. This action compelled authors, actors, and producers to migrate to other lands. Yiddish theaters were established in Paris, London, and New York. In 1887 Goldfaden was invited by some of his actors who had moved to New York to join them, but when he arrived he encountered severe competition from producers who had preceded him and from scriptwriters who were even more prolific than he. He found Europe more congenial and returned to produce and direct performances of his plays in London, Paris, and Lemberg. He returned to the United States in 1903 and spent his last five years in New York. Many of Goldfaden's 60 plays - not all of them published - continued to be adapted by actors and producers and entered into the permanent repertoire of the Yiddish theater. His characters from Schmendrik and Kuni Lemel to Hotzmakh, the good-natured peddler, and Bobbe Yakhne, the malevolent witch, have been real figures to several generations of theatergoers. (EJ, 2007).OCLC: 41454623. OCLC and Singerman together list 3 copies worldwide (Harvard, NYPL, NLI), with the NYPL copy described as “defective.” Scarce. Our copy: Paper brown, old damps stains, edgewear. Good- Condition. (YID-42-14)

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