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26 November 1999

Taking a Cyber Stroll Down the Jewish Broadway

Yiddish cultural life has found a new home in cyberspace. The bustling theaters of Second Avenue, the one-time hub of the New York Jewish arts scene, may have closed their doors long ago, but a new web-oriented project masterminded by the Center for Advanced Technology at New York University could go some of the way toward recouping the fading memories of that effervescent world.

By the beginning of next year, academics, nostalgia-mongers and the merely curious alike will be able to log on to NYU's digital resource, "Second Avenue Online," at www.yap.cat.nyu.edu, and download scripts, song recordings, pictures, oral histories, scores and historical information regarding Yiddish performing arts.

"Second Avenue Online" began life in 1997 when the late Ann Ronell, best known for penning the ditty "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf," bequeathed money to NYU for a project encompassing the work of Jewish film and theater composers. As NYU already housed the archives of Yiddish Theater composer Sholem Secunda (who wrote the classics "Bei Mir Bistu Sheyn" and "Dos Yidishe Lid"), the idea for a digital archive, dedicated to preserving the memory of and stimulating interest in Yiddish theater, evolved. Recently, Steven Spielberg's Righteous Persons Foundation donated $50,000 toward the development of the project.

Clicking on the "history" icon, visitors to the site can obtain an in-depth account of the development of Yiddish theater, from its roots in the Purimshpiel (Purim Plays) enacted in Eastern European Jewish communities before the 19th century, through to the presence of that theater in America today. Chronicling the artistic journey of Avrom Goldfaden, the founder of the first Yiddish company in Romania in 1876, the history moves forward in time and place to the playwright's arrival in New York and the advent of the "Golden Age" of Yiddish theater. From the Yiddish-language premiere of Goldfaden's "Di Kishefmakherin" ("The Witches") on August 12, 1882, the account explores notable plays and players of the epoch and their subsequent influence on mainstream American culture from Jacob Adler to Woody Allen.

Advisers to the project include Tom Freudenheim, former executive director of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research; actor and director Leonard Nimoy, and performer Seymour Rexite, one of Second Avenue's original players. Mr. Rexite, who is now 88 and lives in New York, has provided researchers with access to important Yiddish theatrical materials, and he also appears on the site himself in an audiovisual interview. Shortly after arriving in America as a boy from his native Poland, Mr. Rexite's exceptional singing abilities took him to The White House, where he sang for President Coolidge. He is noted for his performances in the shows "Dem Rebben's Nign" ("The Rabbi's Melody") and "Dos Yidishe Maydele" ("The Jewish Girl") as well as the first full-length Yiddish talkie, in 1930, "Mayn Yidishe Mame" ("My Jewish Mother").

Aside from being an archeological tool for serious researchers, "Second Avenue Online" tries to capture something of the flavor of the theater scene in its heyday and create modern opportunities for on-line performance. In one part of the site, browsers can raise a virtual glass in the Lower East Side's Caf³ Royal, one of Second Avenue's most popular haunts, where icons of the Yiddish theater such as Boris Thomashefsky once caroused with mainstream artists such as Charlie Chaplin. Project designers say that visitors will eventually be able to take a cyber stroll down the entire length of the old Yiddish Broadway. Meanwhile, by clicking on the web site's "Center Stage" icon, viewers can download the project's first foray into contemporary Yiddish "theatricks": a shadowy, digitally-animated realization of "The Golem," the Jewish stage predecessor of the "Frankenstein" story.

"We are using the technology of the future to preserve the heritage of the past," said project director Cynthia Allen. There can be no doubt as to the significance of the undertaking from an academic point of view. But how far does the virtual platform provided by "Second Avenue Online" go toward recreating a now largely lost, but once lively, cultural environment? David Roskies, a literature professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, said he feels skeptical about the technological time capsule: "It's great that this resource exists, but as someone who grew up with Yiddish theater, it will never mimic the experience of seeing a live show." But Nahma Sandrow, a Yiddish theater historian, thinks the recreational aspect of the site could be stimulating. "It's like going to see a movie. People like to imagine what the past was like and transport themselves into a different world."

The Righteous Persons Foundation believes "Second Avenue Online" could stimulate new interest in Yiddish culture from other sectors of society. "The site is a vehicle for exploring American history, of which Yiddish history is an important part -- it will appeal to Jews and non-Jews alike," program officer Rachel Levin said. But for those who remember the time when Second Avenue throbbed to the croon of klezmer and the chatter of curtain-time crowds, the potential for reviving enthusiasm for Yiddish culture today seems slim. "We've fallen on hard times. Young people are not inclined to run to the Yiddish theater any more," Mr. Rexite said.

This may be an age of "techno," but it is also one of "retro," when young people shake the dust from such long-forgotten forms as Gregorian chant and Aboriginal dance. A renewed interest in Yiddish art does not seem such an impossibility as hip crowds gather for klezmer concerts and 20-somethings stage productions of Sholem Asch's "God of Vengeance" in disused strip clubs on the Lower East Side. As Mr. Roskies says of the new digital resource, "I'd rather go to the theater, but my son would prefer to look at a computer screen. It's a generation-gap thing." Perhaps "Second Avenue Online" will do something about that gap, bringing the young generation of today closer to its immigrant ancestors.