1.
Fiddler on the Roof (film)
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Fiddler on the Roof is a 1971 American musical comedy-drama film produced and directed by Norman Jewison. It is an adaptation of the 1964 Broadway musical of the name, with music composed by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick. Throughout the film, Tevye breaks the wall by talking directly to the audience or to the heavens. In addition to the difficulties of being poor, Tevye speaks of the Jewish communitys constant fear of harassment from their non-Jewish neighbors, the film was released to critical acclaim and won three Academy Awards, including Best Original Score for arranger-conductor John Williams. It was nominated for more, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Topol as Tevye, and Best Supporting Actor for Frey. Both Topol and Frey had previously performed in productions of the musical, Topol as Tevye in the London production and Frey in a minor part as Mendel. The films plot follows that of the musical from which it is adapted. In town, Tevye meets Perchik, a radical Marxist from Kiev, Tevye invites Perchik to stay with his family, and offers him food in exchange for Perchik tutoring his daughters. Tevye arranges for his oldest daughter, Tzeitel, to marry Lazar Wolf, Tzeitel is in love with her childhood sweetheart, Motel Kamzoil, and begs her father not to make her marry Lazar Wolf. Although he is angry, Tevye realizes that Tzeitel loves Motel. In order to convince his wife Golde that Tzeitel should not be married to Lazar Wolfe and he says that Goldes deceased grandmother told him Tzeitel is supposed to marry Motel, and that Lazar Wolfs late wife, Fruma-Sarah, threatened to kill Tzeitel if the two are married. Golde concludes that the dream was a message from their ancestors, meanwhile, Tevyes second daughter, Hodel, and Perchik begin to fall in love. They argue over the story of Leah and the place of old traditions in a changing world. The two dance together, which is considered forbidden by Orthodox Jewish tradition, Perchik tells Hodel that they just changed an old tradition. At Tzeitel and Motels wedding, an argument breaks out over whether a girl should be able to choose her own husband, Perchik addresses the crowd and says that, since they love each other, it should be left for the couple to decide. He creates further controversy by asking Hodel to dance with him, the crowd gradually warms to the idea and Tevye and Golde, then Motel and Tzeitel, join in dancing. The wedding proceeds with great joy, suddenly, the military presence in the town and the constable arrive and begin a pogrom. The constable stops the attack on the celebration after Perchik is wounded in the scuffle with the Tsars men, however
Fiddler on the Roof (film)
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Theatrical release poster
2.
Jerry Bock
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Jerrold Lewis Jerry Bock was an American musical theater composer. Born in New Haven, Connecticut and raised in Flushing, Queens, New York and he attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he wrote the musical Big As Life, which toured the state and enjoyed a run in Chicago. After graduation, he spent three summers at the Tamiment Playhouse in the Poconos and wrote for early television revues with lyricist Larry Holofcener and he made his Broadway debut in 1955 when he and Lawrence Holofcener contributed songs to Catch a Star. The following year the duo collaborated on the musical Mr. Wonderful, designed for Sammy Davis, Jr. after which worked on Ziegfeld Follies of 1956. Shortly after, Bock met lyricist Sheldon Harnick, with whom he forged a successful partnership, although their first joint venture, The Body Beautiful, failed to charm the critics, its score caught the attention of director George Abbott and producer Hal Prince. They hired the team to compose a biography of former New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Went on to win both the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Fiddler on the Roof included the hit song If I Were a Rich Man, Bock spoke at the funeral of 98-year-old Fiddler playwright Joseph Stein just 10 days before his own death, from heart failure at the age of 81, four weeks before his 82nd birthday. Awards 1960 Tony Award for Best Musical – Fiorello,1960 Pulitzer Prize for Drama – Fiorello. PBS biography Songwriters Hall of Fame biography TonyAwards. com Interview with Jerry Bock
Jerry Bock
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Jerry Bock
3.
Sheldon Harnick
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Sheldon Harnick is an American lyricist best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on hit musicals such as Fiddler on the Roof. Harnick began his career writing words and music to songs in musical revues. One of these, The Merry Minuet, was popularized by the Kingston Trio and it is in the caustic style usually associated with Tom Lehrer and is sometimes incorrectly attributed to him. Harnick was born to American Jewish parents and grew up in the Chicago neighborhood of Portage Park, yiddish was spoken in the home rarely, mostly as a way of telling secrets between parents. Harnick began writing music while still in Carl Schurz High School in Chicago, after his Army service, he graduated from the Northwestern University School of Music with a Bachelor of Music Degree, and worked with various orchestras in the Chicago area. He then moved to New York City and wrote for many musicals and he was friends with Charlotte Rae from college, and he went to see her one night at the Village Vanguard where she was singing a revue. Yip Harburg, who was one of Harnicks idols, heard she was singing a song of his and he told Harnick that he enjoyed his writing, and urged him to continue. Harburg advised Harnick to work with a number of composers. He also counseled him to character and comic songs, not ballads. Harburg gave him advice because his old partner, Jay Gorney, had told them ballads were the key to success on Broadway. Around 1956, Harnick met Jerry Bock, forming what is arguably the most important musical partnership of the 60s and their first musical was The Body Beautiful, running for only 60 performances in 1958, but Fiorello. Ran for 795 performances and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Fiddler on the Roof became one of the most cherished of all Broadway musicals. Harnick wrote the libretto for the opera Coyote Tales, with music by Henry Mollicone and he wrote the book, music and lyrics to the musical Dragons, which was performed in 2003 at the Luna Stage in Montclair, New Jersey. He wrote the lyrics and co-wrote the book with Norton Juster for the musical The Phantom Tollbooth, the musical premiered at the Kennedy Center in 2007. New Faces of 1952 Shangri-La The Body Beautiful Portofino Fiorello, sheldon Harnick has won three Tony Awards. In 1960, he, Bock and Weidman tied with Rodgers and Hammerstein for best musical, and in 1965, Bock and Harnicks Fiddler on the Roof won for both Best Musical and Best Composer and Lyricist. In honor of Harnicks vast influence on American music, on May 19,1984 he was awarded the University of Pennsylvania Glee Club Award of Merit, sheldon Harnick was honored at the Twenty-Sixth Annual William Inge Theatre Festival located in Independence, Kansas, in 2007. Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock were presented with the 18th Annual York Theatre Companys prestigious Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre in 2009
Sheldon Harnick
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Sheldon Harnick
4.
Joseph Stein
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Joseph Stein was an American playwright best known for writing the books for such musicals as Fiddler on the Roof and Zorba. Born in New York City to Jewish parents, Charles and Emma Stein and he graduated in 1935 from CCNY, with a B. S. degree, then earned a Master of Social Work degree from Columbia University in 1937. He began his career as a social worker from 1939 until 1945. A chance encounter with Zero Mostel led him to writing for radio personalities, including Henry Morgan, Hildegarde, Tallulah Bankhead, Phil Silvers. He later started working in television for Sid Caesar when he joined the team of Your Show of Shows that included Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner. Stein made his Broadway debut contributing sketches written with Will Glickman to the 1948 revue Lend an Ear. had its namesake, Stein and his writing partner Will Glickman were drawn to the Amish community of Lancaster County. It was an old-fashioned, low-pressure alternative set among the Pennsylvania Dutch and it was pleasant and certainly suitable for the family trade. The musical has been playing at The Round Barn Theatre at Amish Acres in Nappanee, Indiana annually since 1986, richard Pletcher, founder and producer, dedicated The Round Barn Theatre stage to Stein in 1997 during its production of The Bakers Wife. The theatre has produced eight of Steins musicals since then and his greatest success came from writing the book for the 1964 musical play Fiddler on the Roof, for which he won three major awards, including two Tonys. He later wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation and he also wrote the plays Mrs. Gibbons Boys and Before the Dawn. He co-wrote, with Carl Reiner, the screenplay for the adaptation of Enter Laughing. The Bakers Wife, written with Stephen Schwartz, was directed by Trevor Nunn in London in 1989 where it was nominated for an Olivier Award for Musical of the Year. Antonio Banderas is said to be set to star in a revival of Zorba scheduled for the 2010–2011 Broadway season. Stein wrote the book for the musical All About Us, with a score by Kander and Ebb and it premiered at the Westport Country Playhouse in April 2007. York Theatre The York Theatre featured Steins Take Me Along, Carmelina, Stein revised Carmelina reducing it to a cast of seven from its original Broadway version for the York reading. Its 2007 series featured four additional Stein musicals, Zorba, Enter Laughing, The Musical, The Body Beautiful, the readings are presented in concert format in mufti, in street clothes without scenery or props. It was nominated for a 2009 Lucille Lortel Award for outstanding revival, a Broadway transfer has been announced. Victoria Clark starred the City Center Encores, production of Marc Blitzstein and Joseph Stein’s Juno
Joseph Stein
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Joseph Stein
5.
Sholem Aleichem
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Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, better known under his pen name Sholem Aleichem, was a leading Yiddish author and playwright. The musical Fiddler on the Roof, based on his stories about Tevye the Dairyman, was the first commercially successful English-language stage production about Jewish life in Eastern Europe. The Hebrew phrase Shalom aleichem literally means Peace be upon you, Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich was born in 1859 in Pereyaslav and grew up in the nearby shtetl of Voronko, in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire. His father, Menachem-Nukhem Rabinovich, was a merchant at that time. However, a business affair plunged the family into poverty. When he was 13 years old, the family moved back to Pereyaslav, Sholem Aleichems first venture into writing was an alphabetic glossary of the epithets used by his stepmother. At the age of fifteen, inspired by Robinson Crusoe, he composed a Jewish version of the novel and he adopted the pseudonym Sholem Aleichem, a Yiddish variant of the Hebrew expression shalom aleichem, meaning peace be with you and typically used as a greeting. In 1876, after graduating school in Pereyaslav, he spent three years tutoring a wealthy landowners daughter, Olga Loev. From 1880 to 1883 he served as rabbi in Lubny. On May 12,1883, he and Olga married, against the wishes of her father, a few years later, they inherited the estate of Olgas father. In 1890, Sholem Aleichem lost their fortune in a stock speculation. Solomon and Olga had their first child, a daughter named Ernestina, daughter Lyalya was born in 1887. As Lyalya Kaufman, she became a Hebrew writer, a third daughter, Emma, was born in 1888. In 1889, Olga finally gave birth to a son and they named him Elimelech, after Olga’s father, but at home they called him Misha. Daughter Marusi was born in 1892, a final child, a son named Nochum after Solomon’s father was born in 1901. After witnessing the pogroms that swept through southern Russia in 1905, Sholem Aleichem left Kiev and resettled to New York City, where he arrived in 1906. His family set up house in Geneva, Switzerland, but when he saw he could not afford to maintain two households, he joined them in Geneva in 1908, despite his great popularity, he was forced to take up an exhausting schedule of lecturing to make ends meet. In July 1908, during a tour in Russia, Sholem Aleichem collapsed on a train going through Baranowicze
Sholem Aleichem
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Sholem Aleichem
Sholem Aleichem
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Sholem Aleichem statue in Netanya, Israel
Sholem Aleichem
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Sholem Aleichem's funeral on May 15, 1916
Sholem Aleichem
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Sholem Aleichem's gravestone in the Old Mount Carmel Cemetery
6.
West End theatre
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West End theatre is a common term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of Theatreland in and near the West End of London. Along with New York Citys Broadway theatre, West End theatre is considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. Seeing a West End show is a common tourist activity in London, in 2013, ticket sales reached a record 14.4 million, making West End the largest English speaking audience in the world. Famous screen actors frequently appear on the London stage, helen Mirren received an award for her performance as the Queen on the West End stage, and then stated, theatre is such an important part of British history and British culture. Theatre in London flourished after the English Reformation, the first permanent public playhouse, known simply as The Theatre, was constructed in 1576 in Shoreditch by James Burbage. It was soon joined by The Curtain, both are known to have been used by William Shakespeares company. In 1599, the timber from The Theatre was moved to Southwark and these theatres were closed in 1642 due to the Puritans who would later influence the interregnum of 1649. After the Restoration, two companies were licensed to perform, the Dukes Company and the Kings Company, performances were held in converted buildings, such as Lisles Tennis Court. The first West End theatre, known as Theatre Royal in Bridges Street, was designed by Thomas Killigrew and built on the site of the present Theatre Royal and it opened on 7 May 1663 and was destroyed by a fire nine years later. It was replaced by a new designed by Christopher Wren and renamed the Theatre Royal. Outside the West End, Sadlers Wells Theatre opened in Islington on 3 June 1683. Taking its name from founder Richard Sadler and monastic springs that were discovered on the property, it operated as a Musick House, with performances of opera, as it was not licensed for plays. In the West End, the Theatre Royal Haymarket opened on 29 December 1720 on a site north of its current location. The Patent theatre companies retained their duopoly on drama well into the 19th century, by the early 19th century, however, music hall entertainments became popular, and presenters found a loophole in the restrictions on non-patent theatres in the genre of melodrama. Melodrama did not break the Patent Acts, as it was accompanied by music, initially, these entertainments were presented in large halls, attached to public houses, but purpose-built theatres began to appear in the East End at Shoreditch and Whitechapel. The West End theatre district became established with the opening of small theatres and halls. South of the River Thames, the Old Vic, Waterloo Road, the next few decades saw the opening of many new theatres in the West End. It abbreviated its name three years later, the theatre building boom continued until about World War I
West End theatre
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London's
Palace Theatre built in 1891
West End theatre
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The
Lyceum Theatre, home to
Disney's The Lion King.
West End theatre
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The
St Martin's Theatre, home to
The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in the world.
West End theatre
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The exterior of the Old Vic
7.
UK
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
UK
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Stonehenge, in
Wiltshire, was erected around 2500 BC.
UK
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Flag
UK
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The
Bayeux Tapestry depicts the
Battle of Hastings, 1066, and the events leading to it.
UK
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The
Treaty of Union led to a single united kingdom encompassing all Great Britain.
8.
Musical theatre
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Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through the words, music, movement, since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals. These were followed by the numerous Edwardian musical comedies and the theatre works of American creators like George M. Cohan. Musicals are performed around the world and they may be presented in large venues, such as big-budget Broadway or West End productions in New York City or London. Alternatively, musicals may be staged in smaller fringe theatre, Off-Broadway or regional theatre productions, musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces. In addition to the United States and Britain, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in continental Europe, Asia, Australasia, Canada, the three main components of a book musical are its music, lyrics and book. The interpretation of a musical is the responsibility of its team, which includes a director. A musicals production is also characterized by technical aspects, such as set design, costumes, stage properties, lighting. The creative team, designs and interpretations generally change from the production to succeeding productions. Some production elements, however, may be retained from the production, for example. There is no fixed length for a musical, while it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several acts and several hours in length, most musicals range from one and a half to three hours. Musicals are usually presented in two acts, with one intermission, and the first act is frequently longer than the second. A book musical is usually built four to six main theme tunes that are reprised later in the show. Several shorter musicals on Broadway and in the West End have been presented in one act in recent decades, moments of greatest dramatic intensity in a book musical are often performed in song. Proverbially, when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing, typically, many fewer words are sung in a five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore, there is time to develop drama in a musical than in a straight play of equivalent length. Within the compressed nature of a musical, the writers must develop the characters, the material presented in a musical may be original, or it may be adapted from novels, plays, classic legends, historical events or films. On the other hand, many musical theatre works have been adapted for musical films, such as West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Oliver
Musical theatre
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The Black Crook (1866), which some historians consider the first musical
Musical theatre
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A Gaiety Girl (1893) was one of the first hit musicals
Musical theatre
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George Gershwin
Musical theatre
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Chinese Opera
9.
Lyrics
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Lyrics are words that make up a song usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist, the words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a libretto and their writer, as a librettist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit, some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of expression. Rappers can also create lyrics with a variation of rhyming words or words that create, Lyric derives via Latin lyricus from the Greek λυρικός, the adjectival form of lyre. It first appeared in English in the century in reference, to the Earl of Surreys translations of Petrarch. Stainer and Barrett used the word as a substantive, Lyric, poetry or blank verse intended to be set to music. By the 1930s, the present use of the plurale tantum lyrics had begun, the singular form lyric still appears, its present use, however, is to refer to a specific phrase within a songs lyrics. The differences between poem and song may become less meaningful where verse is set to music, to the point that any distinction becomes untenable and this is perhaps recognised in the way popular songs have lyrics. However, the verse may pre-date its tune, or the tune may be lost over time but the words survive, nursery rhymes may be songs, or doggerel, the term doesnt imply a distinction. The ghazal is a form that is considered primarily poetic. See also rapping, roots of hip hop music, analogously, verse drama might normally be judged as poetry, but not consisting of poems. In Baroque music, melodies and their lyrics where prose, rather than paired lines they consist of rhetorical sentences or paragraphs consisting of an opening gesture, an amplification, and a close, in German Vordersatz-Fortspinnung-Epilog. For example, When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, But when I became a man, I put away childish things. -1 Corinthians 13,11 In the lyrics of music a shifter is a word, often a pronoun, where reference varies according to who is speaking, when. For example, who is the my of My Generation, see Royalties Currently, there are many websites featuring song lyrics. This offering, however, is controversial, since some sites include copyrighted lyrics offered without the holders permission, music Publishers Association, which represents sheet music companies, launched a legal campaign against such websites in December 2005. The MPAs president, Lauren Keiser, said the free lyrics web sites are completely illegal, Lyrics licenses could be obtained worldwide through one of the two aggregators, LyricFind and Musixmatch. The first company to provide licensed lyrics was Yahoo, quickly followed by MetroLyrics and Lyrics. com
Lyrics
–
A
lyrist on the
Standard of Ur, c. 2500 BC.
10.
Pale of Settlement
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The archaic English term pale is derived from the Latin word palus, a stake, extended to mean the area enclosed by a fence or boundary. The Pale of Settlement included much of present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, and Poland and it extended from the eastern pale, or demarcation line, to the western Russian border with the Kingdom of Prussia and with Austria-Hungary. Furthermore, it comprised about 20% of the territory of European Russia and largely corresponded to historical borders of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire in the period of the existence of the Pale was predominantly Orthodox Christian. The area included in the Pale, with its large Jewish and Catholic populations, was acquired through a series of conquests and diplomatic maneuvers. While the religious nature of the creating the Pale are clear, historians argue that the motivations for its creation. From 1791 to 1835, and until 1917, there were differing reconfigurations of the boundaries of the Pale, such that certain areas were open or shut to Jewish residency. At times, Jews were forbidden to live in communities, or certain cities. During World War I, the Pale lost its hold on the Jewish population when large numbers of Jews fled into the Russian interior to escape the invading German army. On March 20,1917, the Pale was abolished by the Provisional Government decree, a large portion of the Pale, together with its Jewish population, became part of Poland. Subsequently, most of population would perish in The Holocaust one generation later. Jewish life in the shtetls of the Pale of Settlement was hard, following the Jewish religious tradition of tzedakah, a sophisticated system of volunteer Jewish social welfare organizations developed to meet the needs of the population. These, along with the repressive May Laws, often devastated whole communities, one outgrowth of the concentration of Jews in a circumscribed area was the development of the modern yeshiva system. Until the beginning of the 19th century, each town supported its own advanced students who learned in the synagogue with the rabbinical head of the community. Each student would eat his meals in a different home each day, the quotas in the capitals, however, were increased slightly in 1908 and 1915. Amidst the difficult conditions in which the Jewish population lived and worked, because of the harsh conditions of day-to-day life in the Pale, some two million Jews emigrated from there between 1881 and 1914, mainly to the United States. However, this exodus did not affect the stability of the Jewish population of the Pale, the Pale of Settlement included the following areas
Pale of Settlement
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The Pale of Settlement circled with the red line
Pale of Settlement
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A Jewish teacher in 19th-century
Podolia
11.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
Russian Empire
–
Peter the Great officially renamed the Tsardom of Russia the Russian Empire in 1721, and himself its first emperor. He instituted the
sweeping reforms and oversaw the transformation of Russia into a major European power.
Russian Empire
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Flag
Russian Empire
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Empress
Catherine the Great, who reigned from 1762 to 1796, continued the empire's expansion and modernization. Considering herself an
enlightened absolutist, she played a key role in the
Russian Enlightenment.
Russian Empire
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Catherine II Sestroretsk Rouble (1771) is made of solid copper measuring 77 millimetres (3 3 ⁄ 100 in) (diameter), 26 millimetres (1 1 ⁄ 50 in) (thickness), and weighs 1.022 kg (2.25 lb). It is the largest copper coin ever issued.
12.
Jewish
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The Jews, also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Israelites, or Hebrews, of the Ancient Near East. Jews originated as a national and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, the Merneptah Stele appears to confirm the existence of a people of Israel, associated with the god El, somewhere in Canaan as far back as the 13th century BCE. The Israelites, as an outgrowth of the Canaanite population, consolidated their hold with the emergence of the Kingdom of Israel, some consider that these Canaanite sedentary Israelites melded with incoming nomadic groups known as Hebrews. The worldwide Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million prior to World War II, but approximately 6 million Jews were systematically murdered during the Holocaust. Since then the population has risen again, and as of 2015 was estimated at 14.3 million by the Berman Jewish DataBank. According to the report, about 43% of all Jews reside in Israel and these numbers include all those who self-identified as Jews in a socio-demographic study or were identified as such by a respondent in the same household. The exact world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure, Israel is the only country where Jews form a majority of the population. The modern State of Israel was established as a Jewish state and defines itself as such in its Declaration of Independence and its Law of Return grants the right of citizenship to any Jew who requests it. The English word Jew continues Middle English Gyw, Iewe, according to the Hebrew Bible, the name of both the tribe and kingdom derive from Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. The Hebrew word for Jew, יְהוּדִי ISO 259-3 Yhudi, is pronounced, with the stress on the syllable, in Israeli Hebrew. The Ladino name is ג׳ודיו, Djudio, ג׳ודיוס, Djudios, Yiddish, ייִד Yid, ייִדן, Yidn. The etymological equivalent is in use in languages, e. g. but derivations of the word Hebrew are also in use to describe a Jew, e. g. in Italian. The German word Jude is pronounced, the corresponding adjective jüdisch is the origin of the word Yiddish, in such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a factual reconstruction for the origin of the Jews is a difficult and complex endeavor. It requires examining at least 3,000 years of ancient human history using documents in vast quantities, as archaeological discovery relies upon researchers and scholars from diverse disciplines, the goal is to interpret all of the factual data, focusing on the most consistent theory. In this case, it is complicated by long standing politics and religious, Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacobs son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses, traditionally dated to the 13th century BCE, Modern archaeology has largely discarded the historicity of the Patriarchs and of the Exodus story, with it being reframed as constituting the Israelites inspiring national myth narrative. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group
Jewish
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Baruch Spinoza
Jewish
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David Ben-Gurion
Jewish
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George Gershwin
Jewish
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Map of
Canaan
13.
Nicholas II of Russia
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Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March 1917. His reign saw the fall of the Russian Empire from being one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic, Soviet historiography portrayed Nicholas as a weak and incompetent leader, whose decisions led to military defeats and the deaths of millions of his subjects. The Anglo-Russian Entente, designed to counter German attempts to influence in the Middle East. Nicholas approved the Russian mobilisation on 30 July 1914, which led to Germany declaring war on Russia on 1 August 1914 and it is estimated that around 3,300,000 Russians were killed in World War I. Following the February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas abdicated on behalf of himself and his son, Nicholas, the recovered remains of the Imperial Family were finally re-interred in St. Petersburg, eighty years to the day on 17 July 1998. In 1981, Nicholas, his wife and their children were canonized as martyrs by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, located in New York City. On 15 August 2000 Nicholas and his family were canonized as passion bearers, Nicholas was born in the Alexander Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, the eldest son of Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia. He had five siblings, Alexander, George, Xenia, Michael. Nicholas often referred to his father nostalgically in letters after Alexanders death in 1894 and he was also very close to his mother, as revealed in their published letters to each other. His paternal grandparents were Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna of Russia and his maternal grandparents were King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark. Nicholas was of primarily German and Danish descent, his last ethnically Russian ancestor being Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna, Nicholas was related to several monarchs in Europe. His mothers siblings included Kings Frederik VIII of Denmark and George I of Greece, Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany were all first cousins of King George V of the United Kingdom. Nicholas was also a first cousin of both King Haakon VII and Queen Maud of Norway, as well as King Constantine I of Greece, Tsar Nicholas II was the first cousin-once-removed of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich. To distinguish between them the Grand Duke was often known within the Imperial family as Nikolasha and Nicholas the Tall, while the Tsar was Nicholas the Short. In his childhood, Nicholas, his parents and siblings made annual visits to the Danish royal palaces of Fredensborg and Bernstorff to visit his grandparents, the king and queen. The visits also served as family reunions, as his mothers siblings would come from the United Kingdom, Germany. It was there in 1883, that he had a flirtation with one of his English first cousins, in 1873, Nicholas also accompanied his parents and younger brother, two-year-old George, on a two-month, semi-official visit to England. In London, Nicholas and his family stayed at Marlborough House, as guests of his Uncle Bertie and Aunt Alix, the Prince and Princess of Wales, where he was spoiled by his uncle
Nicholas II of Russia
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Tsar Nicholas II, in the uniform of a
Royal Navy Admiral of the Fleet, c. 1909
Nicholas II of Russia
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Tsar Nicholas II of Russia with his physically similar cousin,
King George V of the United Kingdom (right), in German military uniforms in Berlin before the war; 1913
Nicholas II of Russia
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Tsarevich Nicholas in Japan (1891)
Nicholas II of Russia
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Official engagement photograph of Nicholas II and Alexandra, April 1894
14.
Grease (musical)
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Grease is a 1971 musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey with additional songs written by John Farrar. The score attempts to recreate the sounds of rock and roll. In its original production in Chicago, Grease was a raunchy, raw, aggressive, subsequent productions sanitized it and tamed it down. Grease was first performed in 1971 in the original Kingston Mines nightclub in Chicago, from there, it has been successful on both stage and screen, but the content has been diluted and its teenage characters have become less Chicago habitués and more generic. At the time that it closed in 1980, Greases 3, 388-performance run was the longest yet in Broadway history and it remains Broadways 15th longest-running show. Aspects of the play would be incorporated into the productions 2016 live TV musical. The script was based on Jim Jacobs experience at William Taft High School, Warren Casey collaborated with Jim and together they wrote the music and lyrics. Producers Ken Waissman and Maxine Fox saw the show and made a deal to produce it Off-Broadway, the team headed to New York City to collaborate on the New York production of Grease. The new production, directed by Tom Moore and choreographed by Patricia Birch, though Grease opened geographically off-Broadway, it did so under first class Broadway contracts. The show was deemed eligible for the 1972 Tony Awards, receiving seven Tony Award nominations. On June 7,1972, the moved to the Broadhurst Theatre in Broadway, and on November 21, it moved to the Royale Theatre there. For the five weeks of the run, the show moved to the larger Majestic Theatre. By the time it closed on April 13,1980, it had run 3,388 performances. Replacements later in the run included Jeff Conaway, Gail Edwards, Marilu Henner, Peter Gallagher, Ilene Graff, Judy Kaye, Patrick Swayze, John Travolta, Jerry Zaks and Treat Williams. Richard Gere was an understudy for many roles in production, including Danny Zuko, Teen Angel. Later Paul Nicholas and Elaine Paige, who had been in the London production of Hair, kim Braden would also play Sandy. It was revived in London at the Astoria in 1979 with Su Pollard, the revival opened at the Dominion Theatre and transferred to the Cambridge Theatre in October 1996, where it ran until September 11,1999. Other performers who played Danny were Shane Richie, Luke Goss, Ian Kelsey, the original score includes four songs written for the film adaptation, Hopelessly Devoted to You, Sandy, Youre the One That I Want, and the title number
Grease (musical)
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Original Broadway Cast Recording
15.
Tony Award
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The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at a ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances, and an award is given for regional theatre, several discretionary non-competitive awards are also given, including a Special Tony Award, the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award. The awards are named after Antoinette Tony Perry, co-founder of the American Theatre Wing, the rules for the Tony Awards are set forth in the official document Rules and Regulations of The American Theatre Wings Tony Awards, which applies for that season only. It also forms the fourth spoke in the EGOT, that is someone who has won all four awards, the Tony Awards are also considered the equivalent of the Laurence Olivier Award in the United Kingdom and the Molière Award of France. From 1997 to 2010, the Tony Awards ceremony was held at Radio City Music Hall in New York City in June and broadcast live on CBS television, except in 1999, in 2011 and 2012, the ceremony was held at the Beacon Theatre. From 2013 to 2015, the 67th, 68th, and 69th ceremonies returned to Radio City Music Hall, the 70th Tony Awards were held on June 12,2016 at the Beacon Theatre. The 71st Tony Awards will be held on June 11,2017, as of 2014, there are 24 categories of awards, plus several special awards. Starting with 11 awards in 1947, the names and number of categories have changed over the years, some examples, the category Best Book of a Musical was originally called Best Author. The category of Best Costume Design was one of the original awards, for two years, in 1960 and 1961, this category was split into Best Costume Designer and Best Costume Designer. It then went to a category, but in 2005 it was divided again. For the category of Best Director of a Play, a category was for directors of plays. A newly established non-competitive award, The Isabelle Stevenson Award, was given for the first time at the ceremony in 2009. The award is for an individual who has made a contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of one or more humanitarian. The category of Best Special Theatrical Event was retired as of the 2009–2010 season, the categories of Best Sound Design of a Play and Best Sound Design of a Musical were retired as of the 2014-2015 season. Performance categories Show and technical categories Special awards Retired awards The award was founded in 1947 by a committee of the American Theatre Wing headed by Brock Pemberton. The award is named after Antoinette Perry, nicknamed Tony, an actress, director, producer and co-founder of the American Theatre Wing, who died in 1946. As her official biography at the Tony Awards website states, At Jacob Wilks suggestion, proposed an award in her honor for distinguished stage acting, at the initial event in 1947, as he handed out an award, he called it a Tony
Tony Award
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Designed by
Herman Rosse, 1949
Tony Award
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Former logo
16.
Yiddish
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Yiddish is the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews. Yiddish is written with a fully vocalized alphabet based on the Hebrew script, the earliest surviving references date from the 12th century and call the language לשון־אַשכּנז or טײַטש, a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for Middle High German. Colloquially, the language is sometimes called מאַמע־לשון, distinguishing it from לשון־קדש, the term Yiddish, short for Yiddish-Teitsch, did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature until the 18th century. In the late 19th and into the 20th century the language was commonly called Jewish, especially in non-Jewish contexts. Modern Yiddish has two major forms, Eastern Yiddish is far more common today. It includes Southeastern, Mideastern, and Northeastern dialects, Eastern Yiddish differs from Western both by its far greater size and by the extensive inclusion of words of Slavic origin. Western Yiddish is divided into Southwestern, Midwestern, and Northwestern dialects, the term Yiddish is also used in the adjectival sense, synonymously with Jewish, to designate attributes of Ashkenazi culture. Prior to the Holocaust, there were over 10 million speakers of Yiddish, 85% of the Jews who died in the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers, assimilation following World War II further decreased the use of Yiddish both among survivors and Yiddish-speakers from other countries. However, the number of speakers is increasing in global Hasidic communities, the established view is that, as with other Jewish languages, Jews speaking distinct languages learned new co-territorial vernaculars, which they then Judaized. Exactly what German base lies behind the earliest form of Yiddish is disputed, both Weinreich and Solomon Birnbaum developed this model further in the mid-1950s. In Weinreichs view, this Old Yiddish substrate later bifurcated into two versions of the language, Western and Eastern Yiddish. They retained the Semitic vocabulary needed for religious purposes and created a Judeo-German form of speech, recent linguistic research has finessed, contested, or challenged the Weinreich model, providing alternative approaches to the origins of Yiddish. Some theorists argue that the fusion occurred with a Bavarian dialect base, the two main candidates for the germinal matrix of Yiddish, the Rhineland and Bavaria, are not necessarily incompatible. There may have been developments in the two regions, seeding the Western and Eastern dialects of Modern Yiddish. Dovid Katz proposes that Yiddish emerged from contact between speakers of High German and Aramaic-speaking Jews from the Middle East, wexlers model has met with little academic support, and strong critical challenges, especially among historical linguists. Alternative theories recognize the extent of Yiddishs Germanic vocabulary. Ashkenaz was centered on the Rhineland and the Palatinate, in what is now the westernmost part of Germany and its geographic extent did not coincide with the German principalities of the time, and it included northern France. Ashkenaz bordered on the inhabited by another distinctive Jewish cultural group, the Sephardim or Spanish Jews
Yiddish
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The calligraphic segment in the Worms Mahzor.
Yiddish
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A page from the Shemot Devarim (literally Names of Things), a Yiddish-Hebrew-Latin-German dictionary and thesaurus, published by Elia Levita in 1542
Yiddish
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American World War I -era poster in Yiddish. Translated caption: "Food will win the war – You came here seeking freedom, now you must help to preserve it – We must supply the
Allies with wheat – Let nothing go to waste". Colour lithograph, 1917. Digitally restored.
Yiddish
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An example of graffiti in Yiddish, Tel Aviv, Washington avenue.
17.
Mark Zborowski
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Mark Zborowski was an anthropologist and an NKVD agent. He was the NKVDs most valuable mole inside the Trotskyist organization in Paris during the 1930s, Zborowski was one of four children born into a Jewish family in Uman, near Cherkasy, in 1908. According to the story Zborowski told friends, his parents moved to Poland in 1921 to escape the October Revolution in Russia. While he was a student, Zborowski disobeyed his parents and joined the Polish Communist Party and his political activity led to imprisonment and he fled to Berlin where he was unsuccessful in finding employment. He moved to France and attended the University of Grenoble, studying anthropology, in 1933 the penniless Zborowski turned up in Paris with his wife and was recruited as an NKVD agent by the Leningrad émigré Alexander Adler. He provided the NKVD with a background and revealed that his sister. According to historian John J. Dziak, the NKVD had recruited him into a group who murdered special enemies of Joseph Stalin. Those assassinated included Ignace Reiss, Andrés Nin, and Walter Krivitsky, members of the group are said to have included Leonid Eitingon, Nikolai Vasilyevich Skoblin, Sergei Efron, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, and perhaps the psychoanalyst Max Eitingon. The NKVD took steps to him into the Paris organization run by Leon Trotskys son Lev Sedov. Known as Etienne, Zborowski befriended Sedovs wife, Jeanne Martin, because of his obsequious nature and untiring work, and because he was also a Russian speaker in what was essentially a French group, Etienne soon became indispensable to Sedov. All the while Etienne reported on the activity of Trotsky, Sedov, on February 8,1938 the overworked Sedov suffered a severe attack of appendicitis. Etienne convinced him to have the operation secretly at a private clinic run by Russian emigres in Paris. Sedov was operated on the evening and appeared, over the next few days. Suddenly he became ill and despite repeated blood transfusions he died in great pain on February 16 at the age of thirty-two. Historians differ as to whether or not Sedov was murdered by the NKVD, after Sedovs death, Trotsky initiated an investigation of Etienne and entrusted the matter to Rudolf Klement, his one-time aide and organizer of Trotskys Fourth International. They cut off Klements head and legs and stuffed the body parts in a trunk, several days later the Trotskyists received a typewritten letter from Klement accusing Trotsky of collaboration with Adolf Hitler. The letter, clearly an NKVD fabrication, was no doubt meant to explain Klements disappearance, however, Klements headless corpse washed ashore in August 1938 and was identified, from a scar on one hand, by two Trotskyists. Etienne now became the leader of the beheaded Trotskyist organization in Paris and continued to edit the Bulletin of the Opposition and he used his skills to play upon the vanities of the remaining Trotskyists and create internal divisions within the faction, especially isolating Victor Serge
Mark Zborowski
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This article includes a
list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient
inline citations. Please help to
improve this article by
introducing more precise citations. (August 2014)
18.
Yiddish Art Theater
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For the rock venue, see Irving Plaza The Irving Place Theatre was located at the southwest corner of Irving Place and East 15th Street in the Union Square neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Built in 1888, it served as a German language theatre, a Yiddish theatre, a house, a union meeting hall, a legitimate theatre. The theater is the setting for the 2013 fictional play, The Nance, the original building on the site was Irving Hall, which opened in 1860 as a venue for balls, lectures, and concerts. It was also for years the base for one faction of the citys Democratic Party. The facility was rebuilt, and opened as Ambergs German Theatre in 1888 under the management of Gustav Amberg, heinrich Conried took over management in 1893, and changed the name to Irving Place Theatre. The first night of the play Narrentanz by Leo Birinski took place here on November 13,1912, in 1918 the facility became the home of Yiddish Art Theater company under the management of Maurice Schwartz. By the 1920s burlesque shows were offered alongside Yiddish drama, composer-arranger Harry Lubin, of The Outer Limits fame, was musical director of the theater during the 1920s and 1930s. Clemente Giglio converted the theatre in 1939 into a cinema to present Italian films, in 1940 it was taken over by a group of non-Equity actors, the Merely Players, whose productions were picketed by the theatrical unions. During World War II it presented a program of mixed bills of Soviet propaganda and French films
Yiddish Art Theater
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An undated photograph of the Irving Place Theatre
19.
Rodgers and Hammerstein
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Rodgers and Hammerstein refers to an influential, innovative and successful American musical theatre writing team consisting of composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II. They created a string of popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s, five of their Broadway shows, Oklahoma. Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music, were outstanding successes, of the other four that the team produced on Broadway during their lifetimes, Flower Drum Song was well-received, and none was an outright flop. Most of their shows have received frequent revivals around the world, among the many accolades their shows garnered were thirty-four Tony Awards, fifteen Academy Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, and two Grammy Awards. Their musical theatre writing partnership has been called the greatest of the 20th century, prior to their partnership, both Rodgers and Hammerstein achieved success independently. Rodgers had collaborated for more than two decades with Lorenz Hart, among their many Broadway hits were the shows A Connecticut Yankee, Babes in Arms, The Boys from Syracuse, Pal Joey, and By Jupiter, as well as many successful film projects. Their 1927 musical Show Boat is considered to be one of the masterpieces of the American musical theatre, other Hammerstein/Kern collaborations include Sweet Adeline and Very Warm for May. Although the last of these was panned by critics, it one of Kern and Hammersteins best-loved songs. By the early 1940s, Hart had sunk deeper into alcoholism and emotional turmoil, independently of each other, Rodgers and Hammerstein had been attracted to making a musical based on Lynn Riggs stage play Green Grow the Lilacs. When Jerome Kern declined Hammersteins offer to work on such a project and Hart refused Rodgers offer to do the same, Rodgers, marked a revolution in musical drama. Although not the first musical to tell a story of emotional depth and psychological complexity, introduced a number of new storytelling elements and techniques. These included its use of song and dance to convey plot and character rather than act as a diversion from the story, was originally called Away We Go. and opened at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven in March 1943. Only a few changes were made before it opened on Broadway, the original Broadway production opened on March 31,1943, at the St. James Theatre. Although the typical musical of the time was written around the talents of a specific performer, such as Ethel Merman or Fred Astaire. Ultimately the original cast included Alfred Drake, Joan Roberts, Celeste Holm, Howard Da Silva, Betty Garde, Lee Dixon, marc Platt danced the role of Dream Curly, and Katharine Sergava danced the part of Dream Laurey. The story and the songs were considered more important than sheer star power, nevertheless, the production ran for a then-unprecedented 2,212 performances, finally closing on May 29,1948. In 1955 it was made into an Academy Award-winning musical film, the film starred Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, and its soundtrack was #1 on the 1956 album charts. After their initial success with Oklahoma, the musical was adapted to the screen in 1954, and scored a Best Actress Oscar nomination for leading lady Dorothy Dandridge
Rodgers and Hammerstein
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Rodgers (left) and Hammerstein (right), with
Irving Berlin (middle) and
Helen Tamiris, watching auditions at the St. James Theatre in 1948
20.
Mike Todd
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Michael Mike Todd was an American theater and film producer, best known for his 1956 production of Around the World in 80 Days, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture. He is known as the third of Elizabeth Taylors seven husbands and is the one whom she did not divorce. He was the force behind the development of the eponymous Todd-AO widescreen film format. Todd was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Chaim Goldbogen and Sophia Hellerman and he was one of nine children in a poor family, the youngest son, and his siblings nicknamed him Toat to mimic his difficulty pronouncing the word coat. It was from this that his name was derived, the family later moved to Chicago, arriving on the day World War I ended. Todd was expelled in the grade for running a game of craps inside the school. In high school, he produced the play, The Mikado. He eventually dropped out of school and worked at a variety of jobs, including shoe salesman. One of his first jobs was as a soda jerk, Todd began his career in the construction business, where he made, and subsequently lost, a fortune. He opened the College of Bricklaying of America, buying the materials to teach bricklaying on credit, the school was forced to close when the Bricklayers Union did not view the college as an accepted place of study. Todd and his brother, Frank, next opened their own construction company and his first flirtation with the film industry was when he served as a contractor to Hollywood studios, soundproofing production stages during the transition from silent pictures to sound. The company he owned with his brother went bankrupt when its financial backing failed in early days of the Great Depression, not yet twenty-one, Todd had lost over $1 million. Having married the former Bertha Freshman on February 14,1927, Todds subsequent business career was volatile, and failed ventures left him bankrupt many times. During the 1933–1934 Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago, Todd produced an attraction called the Flame Dance, in this number, gas jets were designed to burn part of a dancers costume off, leaving her naked in appearance. The act attracted enough attention to bring an offer from the Casino de Paree nightclub in New York City, Todd got his first taste of Broadway with the engagement and was determined to find a way to work there. The Hot Mikado, starring Bill Bojangles Robinson, opened on Broadway March 23,1939, the subsequent success of Todds production, at the expense of the Chicago production, contributed to the financial crisis and ultimate demise of the Federal Theatre Project unit in Chicago. Todds Broadway success gave him the nerve to try taking on showman Billy Rose, Todd visited Grover Whalen, president of the 1939 New York Worlds Fair, with a proposal to bring the Broadway show to the Fair. Whelan, eager to have the show at the fair, covered Todds Broadway early closing costs, Rose, who had an exclusivity clause in his fair contract, met Todd at Lindys, where Rose learned his contract covered new forms of entertainment only
Mike Todd
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Todd at the
Jones Beach Theater on Long Island, 1952.
Mike Todd
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Todd owned a Theatre Cafe in Chicago's
Lake View neighborhood in the 1940s that provided dinner with live presentations and music.
Mike Todd
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First act finale from A Night in Venice The production was replete with a cast of 500 and fireworks.
Mike Todd
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CBS paid Mike Todd for the rights to cover the first anniversary celebration at
Madison Square Garden for Around the World in 80 Days as a television special in 1957. Todd and Taylor are seen here at home in a film clip which was used for the special.
21.
Philip Roth
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Philip Milton Roth is an American novelist. He first gained attention with the 1959 novella Goodbye, Columbus, Roth is one of the most awarded American writers of his generation. His books have received the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle award. He received a Pulitzer Prize for his 1997 novel American Pastoral, which featured one of his characters, Nathan Zuckerman. The Human Stain, another Zuckerman novel, was awarded the United Kingdoms WH Smith Literary Award for the best book of the year, in 2001, in Prague, Roth received the inaugural Franz Kafka Prize. Philip Roth was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in its Weequahic neighborhood and he is the second child of Bess and Herman Roth, an insurance broker. His family was Jewish, and his parents were first-generation Americans and he graduated from Newarks Weequahic High School in or around 1950. It has provided the focus for the fiction of Philip Roth, the Weequahic Yearbook describes Roth as A boy of real intelligence, combined with wit and common sense. Roth was known as a comedian during his time at school, Roth attended Bucknell University, where he earned a B. A. magna cum laude in English and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He pursued graduate studies at the University of Chicago, where he received an M. A. in English literature in 1955, Roth taught creative writing at the University of Iowa and Princeton University. He continued his career at the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught comparative literature before retiring from teaching in 1991. While at Chicago, Roth met the novelist Saul Bellow, as well as Margaret Martinson in 1956 and their separation in 1963, along with Martinsons death in a car crash in 1968, left a lasting mark on Roths literary output. Specifically, Martinson was the inspiration for characters in several of Roths novels, including Lucy Nelson in When She Was Good. Events in Roths personal life have occasionally been the subject of media scrutiny, on his religious views, Roth is an atheist, stating, When the whole world doesnt believe in God, itll be a great place. He also said during an interview to The Guardian, Im exactly the opposite of religious and its all a big lie. and Its not a neurotic thing, but the miserable record of religion. I dont even want to talk about it, its not interesting to talk about the sheep referred to as believers and its filled with fear and loneliness and anxiety—and I never needed religion to save me. In 1990, Roth married his companion, English actress Claire Bloom. In 1994 they separated, and in 1996 Bloom published a memoir, Leaving a Dolls House, certain aspects of I Married a Communist have been regarded by critics as veiled rebuttals to accusations put forth in Blooms memoir
Philip Roth
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Roth in 1973
22.
The New Yorker
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The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It is published by Condé Nast, started as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is now published 47 times annually, with five of these issues covering two-week spans. Although its reviews and events listings often focus on the life of New York City. The New Yorker debuted on February 21,1925 and it was founded by Harold Ross and his wife, Jane Grant, a New York Times reporter. Ross wanted to create a humor magazine that would be different from perceivably corny humor publications such as Judge. Ross partnered with entrepreneur Raoul H. Fleischmann to establish the F-R Publishing Company, the magazines first offices were at 25 West 45th Street in Manhattan. Ross edited the magazine until his death in 1951, during the early, occasionally precarious years of its existence, the magazine prided itself on its cosmopolitan sophistication. Ross famously declared in a 1925 prospectus for the magazine, It has announced that it is not edited for the old lady in Dubuque, although the magazine never lost its touches of humor, it soon established itself as a pre-eminent forum for serious fiction literature and journalism. Shortly after the end of World War II, John Herseys essay Hiroshima filled an entire issue, D. Salinger, Irwin Shaw, James Thurber, John Updike, Eudora Welty, Stephen King, and E. B. White. Publication of Shirley Jacksons The Lottery drew more mail than any story in the magazines history. In its early decades, the magazine published two or even three short stories a week, but in recent years the pace has remained steady at one story per issue. Kurt Vonnegut said that The New Yorker has been an instrument for getting a large audience to appreciate modern literature. Vonneguts 1974 interview with Joe David Bellamy and John Casey contained a discussion of The New Yorkers influence, No other art requires the audience to be a performer. You have to count on the readers being a good performer and those writers you mentioned and myself are teaching an audience how to play this kind of music in their heads. Its a learning process, and The New Yorker has been a good institution of the sort needed. They have an audience, and they come out every week, and people finally catch on to Barthelme, for instance. The non-fiction feature articles cover an array of topics. Recent subjects have included eccentric evangelist Creflo Dollar, the different ways in which humans perceive the passage of time, the magazine is notable for its editorial traditions
The New Yorker
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First issue's cover with
dandy Eustace Tilley, created by
Rea Irvin. The image, or a variation of it, appears on the cover of The New Yorker with every anniversary issue.
23.
Fred Coe
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Among the live TV dramas he produced were Marty and The Trip to Bountiful for Goodyear/Philco, Peter Pan for Producers Showcase, and Days of Wine and Roses for Playhouse 90. Coe made his mark in the years of network television when Lights Out moved from radio to TV on July 3,1946. Variety reviewed, Credit for the shows all-around excellence belongs jointly to scripter Wyllis Cooper and producer Fred Coe, Cooper was the last writer of the radio version with an eight-week series on the NBC net last summer. He followed Arch Oboler at the task and has made the switch from radio to tele without a single letdown in the programs eerie quality, killer was never seen, with the camera following the action and taking in just what the eyes of the murderer would see. Thoughts in the subconscious, meanwhile, told what might go on in the mind of such a person as he contemplates his crime, is convicted in court. Coe achieved some admirable effects with the camera, drawing the viewer both into the mind and into the action. Technical director Bill States was on the beam with the controls in following Coes direction, numerous important actors appeared on Coes shows, which were directed by, among others, Delbert Mann and Arthur Penn. Coe also was a significant producer on Broadway and his plays include The Trip to Bountiful, The Miracle Worker, Two for the Seesaw, All the Way Home, A Thousand Clowns, and Wait Until Dark. He also produced the film versions of The Miracle Worker and A Thousand Clowns, Coe is buried in Green River Cemetery in Springs, New York. His biography, The Man in the Shadows, Fred Coe, the UCLA Film and Television Archive has kinescopes of many Fred Coe productions and has made some digital transfers. The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research also has kinescopes
Fred Coe
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Contents
24.
Jerome Robbins
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Jerome Robbins was an American choreographer, director, dancer, and theater producer who worked in classical ballet, on Broadway, and in films and television. He received two Academy Awards, including the 1961 Academy Award for Best Director with Robert Wise for West Side Story, Robbins was born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz in the Jewish Maternity Hospital at 270 East Broadway on Manhattan’s Lower East Side – a neighborhood populated by many immigrants. The Rabinowitz family lived in an apartment house at 51 East 97th Street at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue. Known as Jerry to those close to him, Robbins was given a name that reflected his parents patriotic enthusiasm for the then-president. In the early 1920s, the Rabinowitz family moved to Weehawken and his father and uncle opened the Comfort Corset Company in Union City, New Jersey. The family had many business connections, including vaudeville performers. In the 1940s, their name was changed to Robbins. Robbins began studying dance in high school with Alys Bentley. Said Robbins later, What gave me immediately was the freedom to make up my own dances without inhibition or doubts. ”After graduation he went to study chemistry at New York University but dropped out after a year for financial reasons. He joined the company of Senya Gluck Sandor, a exponent of expressionistic modern dance. While a member of Sandor’s company Robbins made his debut with the Yiddish Art Theater. Robbins had also begun creating dances for Tamiment’s Revues, some comic and some dramatic, topical, one such dance, later also performed in New York City at the 92nd Street Y, was “Strange Fruit, ” set to the song performed indelibly by Billie Holiday. In 1946, Robbins joined Ballet Theatre, Robbins created and performed in Fancy Free, a ballet about sailors on liberty, at the Metropolitan Opera as part of the Ballet Theatre season in 1944. One of Fancy Frees inspirations was Paul Cadmus 1934 painting The Fleets In, however, Robbins scenario was more lighthearted than the painting. Robbins commissioned a score for the ballet from the then-unknown Leonard Bernstein, with Fancy Free, Robbins created a dance that integrated classic ballet, 1940’s social dancing, and a screwball plotline. Later that year, Robbins conceived and choreographed On the Town, a musical inspired by Fancy Free. Bernstein wrote the music and Smith designed the sets, the book and lyrics were by a team that Robbins would work with again, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and the director was the Broadway legend George Abbott. Because Robbins, as choreographer, insisted that his chorus reflect the diversity of a New York City crowd
Jerome Robbins
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Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins
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Robbins in Three Virgins and a Devil, 1941
Jerome Robbins
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The Fleet's In!, painted by
Paul Cadmus, 1934, the inspiration for the ballet,
Fancy Free (1944)
Jerome Robbins
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Rehearsals for West Side Story, 1961
25.
Marc Chagall
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Marc Zakharovich Chagall was a Russian-French artist. Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century, according to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists. For decades, he had also respected as the worlds preeminent Jewish artist. Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the UN, and he also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra. Before World War I, he travelled between Saint Petersburg, Paris and Berlin, during this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He had two basic reputations, writes Lewis, as a pioneer of modernism and as a major Jewish artist. He experienced modernisms golden age in Paris, where he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism. Yet throughout these phases of his style he remained most emphatically a Jewish artist, when Matisse dies, Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is. Marc Chagall was born Moishe Segal in a Lithuanian Jewish family in Liozna, at the time of his birth, Vitebsks population was about 66,000, with half the population being Jewish. A picturesque city of churches and synagogues, it was called Russian Toledo, as the city was built mostly of wood, little of it survived years of occupation and destruction during World War II. Chagall was the eldest of nine children, the family name, Shagal, is a variant of the name Segal, which in a Jewish community was usually borne by a Levitic family. His father, Khatskl Shagal, was employed by a herring merchant and his father worked hard, carrying heavy barrels but earning only 20 roubles each month. Chagall would later include fish motifs out of respect for his father, writes Chagall biographer, Chagall wrote of these early years, Day after day, winter and summer, at six oclock in the morning, my father got up and went off to the synagogue. There he said his prayer for some dead man or other. On his return he made ready the samovar, drank some tea, hellish work, the work of a galley-slave. No word will ever ease my fathers lot, There was always plenty of butter and cheese on our table. Buttered bread, like a symbol, was never out of my childish hands. One of the sources of income of the Jewish population of the town was from the manufacture of clothing that was sold throughout Russia
Marc Chagall
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Chagall, c.1920 (by Pierre Choumoff)
Marc Chagall
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Chagall's Parents
Marc Chagall
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Portrait of Chagall by
Yehuda (Yuri) Pen, his first art teacher in Vitebsk
Marc Chagall
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Marc Chagall, 1912, Calvary (Golgotha), oil on canvas, 174.6 x 192.4 cm,
Museum of Modern Art, New York. Alternative titles: Kreuzigung Bild 2 Christus gewidmet [Golgotha. Crucifixion. Dedicated to Christ]. Sold through Galerie
Der Sturm (Herwarth Walden), Berlin to Bernhard Koehler (1849–1927), Berlin, 1913. Exhibited: Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon, Berlin, 1913
26.
Zero Mostel
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Mostel was a student of Don Richardson, using an acting technique based on muscle memory. He was blacklisted during the 1950s, and his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee was well-publicized and he was an Obie Award and three-time Tony Award winner. Mostel was born to Israel Mostel, an Ashkenazi Jew of Eastern European origin, and Cina Celia Druchs, the two immigrated to the United States separately – Israel in 1898 and Cina in 1908 – where they met and married. Israel already had four children from his first wife, he had four children with Cina. Samuel, later known as Zero, was Israels seventh child, according to his brother, Bill Mostel, their mother coined the nickname Zero, noting that if he continued to do poorly at school, he would amount to a Zero. Initially living in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, the moved to Moodus, Connecticut. The familys income in those days came from a winery and a slaughterhouse, the farm did not do well. While not at poverty level, the family struggled financially, as a child, Mostel was described by his family as outgoing and lively, and with a developed sense of humor. He showed an intelligence and perception that convinced his father he had the makings of a rabbi, however, Mostel preferred painting and drawing, a passion he was to retain for life. According to Roger Butterfield, his mother made a practice of dressing the boy in a velvet suit, Zero had a favorite painting, John White Alexanders Study in Black and Green, which he copied every day, to the delight of the gallery crowds. One afternoon, while a crowd was watching over his shoulder, he solemnly copied the whole painting upside down. The fact that at home he spoke English, Yiddish, Italian and German helped him out to audiences of many ethnicities in New York. He attended Public School 188, where he was an A student and he also received professional training as a painter through The Educational Alliance. He completed his school education at Seward Park High, where his yearbook noted. Mostel attended the City College of New York, a college that allowed many poor students to pursue higher education. He later claimed that he was on the team and the Reserve Officers Training Corps. As only beginner classes were available in art, Mostel took them repeatedly to be able to paint, during that time he worked odd jobs, and graduated in 1935 with a bachelors degree. He then continued studying towards an MA, and also joined the Public Works of Art Project, in 1939 he married Clara Sverd, and the couple moved to an apartment in Brooklyn
Zero Mostel
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Performing in 1959
Zero Mostel
Zero Mostel
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In the Broadway play Fiddler on the Roof (1964)
27.
House Un-American Activities Committee
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The House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. The HUAC was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of citizens, public employees. In 1969, the House changed the name to House Committee on Internal Security. When the House abolished the committee in 1975, its functions were transferred to the House Judiciary Committee, the committees anti-communist investigations are often associated with those of Joseph McCarthy who, as a U. S. Senator, had no direct involvement with this House committee. McCarthy was the chairman of the Government Operations Committee and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U. S. Senate, not the House. The Overman Committee was a subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary chaired by North Carolina Democratic Senator Lee Slater Overman that operated from September 1918 to June 1919, the subcommittee investigated German as well as Bolshevik elements in the United States. This committee was concerned with investigating pro-German sentiments in the American liquor industry. Among the committees targets were the American Civil Liberties Union and communist presidential candidate William Z. Foster, the committee was widely known as the McCormack-Dickstein committee. Its records are held by the National Archives and Records Administration as records related to HUAC, the committee investigated allegations of a fascist plot to seize the White House, known as the business plot. Although the plot was reported as a hoax, the committee confirmed some details of the accusations. It is unclear whether he passed on any information. It was chaired by Martin Dies, Jr. and therefore known as the Dies Committee, in 1938, Hallie Flanagan, the head of the Federal Theatre Project, was subpoenaed to appear before the committee to answer the charge the project was overrun with communists. Flanagan was called to testify for only a part of one day, in 1939, the committee investigated leaders of the American Youth Congress, a Communist International affiliate organization. The committee also put together an argument for the internment of Japanese Americans known as the Yellow Report, a number of anti-WRA arguments were presented in subsequent hearings, but Director Dillon Myer debunked the more inflammatory claims. Twenty years later, in 1965–1966, however, the committee did conduct an investigation into Klan activities under chairman Edwin Willis, the House Committee on Un-American Activities became a standing committee in 1945. Democratic Representative Edward J. Hart of New Jersey became the committees first chairman, under this mandate, the committee focused its investigations on real and suspected communists in positions of actual or supposed influence in the United States society. A significant step for HUAC was its investigation of the charges of espionage brought against Alger Hiss in 1948 and this investigation ultimately resulted in Hisss trial and conviction for perjury, and convinced many of the usefulness of congressional committees for uncovering communist subversion. In 1947, the committee held nine days of hearings into alleged communist propaganda, after conviction on contempt of Congress charges for refusal to answer some questions posed by committee members, The Hollywood Ten were blacklisted by the industry
House Un-American Activities Committee
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While newsmen take notes, Chairman Dies of House Committee Investigating Un-American Activities reads and proofs his letter replying to Pres. Roosevelt's attack on the Committee, Oct. 26, 1938
House Un-American Activities Committee
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Lee Slater Overman headed the first Congressional investigation of American Communism in 1919.
House Un-American Activities Committee
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Conservative Texas Democrat Martin Dies served as chair of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, predecessor to the permanent committee, for its entire 7-year duration.
House Un-American Activities Committee
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Democrat
Francis E. Walter of Pennsylvania was chair of HUAC from 1955 until his death in 1963.
28.
Shtetl
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Shtetlekh were small towns with large Jewish populations, which existed in Central and Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. Shtetlekh were mainly found in the areas that constituted the 19th-century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, in Yiddish, a larger city, like Lwów or Czernowice, was called a shtot, a village was called a dorf. Non-Jews referred to the shtetl as Mestechko, the concept of shtetl culture describes the traditional way of life of Eastern European Jews. Shtetls are portrayed as pious communities following Orthodox Judaism, socially stable, the decline of the shtetl started from about the 1840s. Contributing factors included poverty as a result of changes in climate, repeated fires that destroyed wooden homes. Also the anti-Semitism of the Russian Imperial administrators and the Polish landlords, from the 1880s until 1915 up to 2 million Jews left Eastern Europe. At the time about three quarters of its Jewish population lived in a shtetl, the Holocaust resulted in the total extermination of shtetls. It was not uncommon for the entire Jewish population of a shtetl to be rounded up, some shtetl inhabitants did emigrate before and after the Holocaust, mostly to Israel and the United States, where some of the traditions were carried on. But, the shtetl as a phenomenon of Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe was eradicated by the Nazis, the attitudes and thought habits characteristic of the learning tradition are as evident in the street and market place as the yeshiva. The popular picture of the Jew in Eastern Europe, held by Jew, the picture includes the tendency to examine, analyze and re-analyze, to seek meanings behind meanings and for implications and secondary consequences. It includes also a dependence on deductive logic as a basis for practical conclusions and actions, in life, as in the Torah, it is assumed that everything has deeper and secondary meanings, which must be probed. All subjects have implications and ramifications, moreover, the person who makes a statement must have a reason, and this too must be probed. Often a comment will evoke an answer to the reason behind it or to the meaning believed to lie beneath it. The process that such a response—often with lightning speed—is a modest reproduction of the pilpul process. The May Laws introduced by Tsar Alexander III of Russia in 1882 banned Jews from rural areas, in the 20th century revolutions, civil wars, industrialization and the Holocaust destroyed traditional shtetl existence. Both pictures are true, and both are characteristic of the yeshiva as well as the market places, when the scholar converses with his intellectual peers, incomplete sentences, a hint, a gesture, may replace a whole paragraph. The listener is expected to understand the meaning on the basis of a word or even a sound. Such a conversation, prolonged and animated, may be as incomprehensible to the uninitiated as if the excited discussants were talking in tongues, the same verbal economy may be found in domestic or business circles
Shtetl
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Lakhva in 1926 (then Łachwa, Poland), ulica Lubaczyńska (Lubaczynska Street)
Shtetl
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Old Jewish cemetery in the shtetl of
Medzhybizh,
Ukraine
29.
Shabbat
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Shabbat observance entails refraining from work activities, often with great rigor, and engaging in restful activities to honor the day. Judaisms traditional position is that unbroken seventh-day Shabbat originated among the Jewish people, as their first and most sacred institution, variations upon Shabbat are widespread in Judaism and, with adaptations, throughout the Abrahamic and many other religions. According to halakha, Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until the appearance of three stars in the sky on Saturday night, Shabbat is ushered in by lighting candles and reciting a blessing. Traditionally, three meals are eaten, in the evening, in the early afternoon, and late in the afternoon. The evening meal begins with a blessing called kiddush and another blessing recited over two loaves of challah. Shabbat is closed the evening with a havdalah blessing. Shabbat is a day when Jews exercise their freedom from the regular labors of everyday life. It offers an opportunity to contemplate the spiritual aspects of life, the word Shabbat derives from the Hebrew verb shavat. Although frequently translated as rest, another translation of these words is ceasing. The related modern Hebrew word shevita, has the implication of active rather than passive abstinence from work. The notion of active cessation from labor is also regarded as consistent with an omnipotent Gods activity on the seventh day of Creation according to Genesis. Sabbath is given status as a holy day at the very beginning of the Torah in Genesis 2. It is first commanded after the Exodus from Egypt, in Exodus 16,26 and in Exodus 20, Sabbath is commanded and commended many more times in the Torah and Tanakh, double the normal number of animal sacrifices are to be offered on the day. Sabbath is also described by the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Amos, the longstanding traditional Jewish position is that unbroken seventh-day Shabbat originated among the Jewish people, as their first and most sacred institution. The Mosaic tradition quotes an origin from the Bible of special creation, though some suggest a later, naturalistic origin. Seventh-day Shabbat did not originate with the Egyptians, to whom it was unknown, the first non-Biblical reference to Sabbath is in an ostracon found in excavations at Mesad Hashavyahu, which is dated 630 BCE. The prohibitions on these days, spaced seven days apart, include abstaining from chariot riding, on these days officials were prohibited from various activities and common men were forbidden to make a wish, and at least the 28th was known as a rest-day. The difficulties of this theory include reconciling the differences between a week and a lunar week, and explaining the absence of texts naming the lunar week as Sabbath in any language
Shabbat
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Shabbat candles
Shabbat
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A silver matchbox holder for Shabbat from the
Republic of Macedonia
Shabbat
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A challah cover with
Hebrew inscription
Shabbat
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Reciting blessing over Shabbat candles
