Tog un nakht. 1925, New York City. Museum of the City of New York, https://collections.mcny.org/asset-management/2F3XC5C0MNEG
TRANSLATION
The Jewish Theater Society opens
Our Theater
2135 Boston Road Corner 181th Street
Starting Tuesday evening, December 9
Esvert played
Day and
Night
Drama in 3 acts
by S. Ansky
Legible Names (Top to Bottom): Bela Belerina, Enon Chreber, Joseph Greenberg, Leo Vian, Frira Vitalin, Esther Mendel, Midni Stainrai, Miriam Elias, M. Fecker, Chaim Schneyer
EXPLANATION
Day and Night (Tog un nakht) was a significant Yiddish play based on fragments from S. Ansky. Ansky had put fragments of it down on paper, yet he had fully realized it in his imagination, and told his vision to Sofia Sorkin-Binshteyn soon before his death. The photographer and playwright Alter Kacyzne completed a draft of this play so it could be produced on stage; it was staged in Warsaw and New York City (this poster) in 1925. This play follows a Rabbi’s response to a children’s epidemic raging in the town, a character named Hananiah’s response to this epidemic, and Deborah, the rabbi’s old mother, looking for a match for her grandchild, Miriam. Hananiah tells the Rabbi that “the Prince of Darkness with his suite celebrates nightly orgies in the ruins of an old mill and is surely the cause of the plague.” In act 2, the play turns to Night, and displays Rabbi and Miriam participating in this event. Finally, in Act 3, the Rabbi and Miriam discuss the night, and the Rabbi’s old mother discloses the secret of her life: that she was raped, and the Rabbi is the son of the Cossack. This kills the Rabbi, and concludes the play.
Tog un nakht. 1925, New York City. Museum of the City of New York, https://collections.mcny.org/asset-management/2F3XC5C0MNEG.
Tog un nakht. 1925, New York City. Museum of the City of New York, https://collections.mcny.org/asset-management/2F3XC5C0MNEG.
Works Cited
Museum of the Yiddish Theatre. “The Play in History: Day and Night.” https://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/moyt/pih/day-and-night.htm.
Tog un nakht. 1925, New York City. Museum of the City of New York, https://collections.mcny.org/asset-management/2F3XC5C0MNEG.
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. “Day and Night (Tog un nakht).” https://exhibitions.yivo.org/items/show/2116#:~:text=Title,Yiddish%20theater%20in%20the%20Americas).\
