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Re: The Greek-Jewish Theater in Judeo-Spanish
- From: Gwynne Sigel <gittele...>
- Subject: Re: The Greek-Jewish Theater in Judeo-Spanish
- Date: Wed 26 Mar 2003 18.58 (GMT)
At 04:15 PM 3/26/03 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi Eva,
I would be interested in seeing the whole article if you do get around to
downloading it.
Thanks,
Gwynne gittele (at) comcast(dot)net
>Hi everyone,
>
>While looking for some other info, I came across an interesting article
>about the Greek-Jewish theater in Judeo-Spanish.
>
>The title is "The Greek-Jewish Theater in Judeo-Spanish, ca. 1880-1940",
>it's written by Yitzchak Kerem and it was published in: Journal of Modern
>Greek Studies 14.1 (1996) 31-45
>
>The article is too long to send to the list, but if I manage to
>copy/download it, I could sent it to anyone interested. The following is
>an excerpt that ties in nicely with the Jewish musical/Purim thread:
>
>Theatrical activity in Thessaloniki became intense in the 1920s and the
>1930s. 3 In 1932, the musical Ester was performed on Purim in
>Judeo-Spanish at the Winter Theater on Megalou Alexandrou by members of
>the religious Zionist movement BPnai Mizrahi. The play was written by the
>Betar activist Shlomo Reuvain. Isaac Sion composed the music, and an
>orchestra accompanied the production. Reuvain based his adaptation on the
>dialogue between Esther and King Ahasuerus in the play Esther by Jean
>Racine, the seventeenth-century French playwright, in which Racine has
>Esther reveal her Jewish identity to the king (Alexander and Weich-Shahak
>1993:46). The folklorist Tamar Alexander notes that the Esther story is a
>classical Jewish folk tale in which there is a confrontation between a
>good Jew, representing the Jewish community, and a wicked Gentile. The
>king sides with the Jews. Most of these tales end with the words, "The
>Jews had light and happiness," evoking another Jewish archetype, "the
>miraculous rescue of the persecuted Jewish community" (Alexander and
>Weich-Shahak 1993:43).
>
>All the best, Eva
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