This alternative journey into the world of Yiddish cinema showcases spectacular performances from the silent era through the thirties, the golden age of Yiddish film, to contemporary experimental works. Folk performances, such as those of the Purim-shpiler in The Jester or the wedding rhymester in The Dybbuk, appear alongside violin and vaudeville in Little Mother, circus and cabaret in The Jester, and wild skits in Jolly Paupers, featuring the unforgettable comic duo Dzigan and Shumacher.
Jesters and Gestures also explores the performance of tradition in the form of customs and rituals, from songs and dances to exorcism (The Dybbuk), as well as what might be called the performance of gender and ethnicity. In Little Mother the legendary Molly Picon presents a comical spectacle of maternity. In the silent East and West, a flux of Jewish stereotypes (the irreverent American flapper, the shy yeshiva student, the assimilated “West Jude”) continually transforms as part of the grand show called acculturation.
Passing to the other side of the World War II watershed, we present the self-reflective reenactment of Yiddish cinema in The Man Without a World and West and East, alongside the performance of memory in Everything's for You and Urban Peasants. From Austria and Poland to Israel and the United States, these films celebrate Eastern European Jewish culture in its variety. Oscillating between tradition and modernity, continuity and change, Yiddish cinema and its reverberations offer an abundance of dance, music, humor, irony, and self-awareness.