Hebrew Actors Union
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| Full name | Hebrew Actors' Union |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1899 |
| Date dissolved | October 2005 |
| Members | 53 (2013) |
| Affiliation | AAAA (AFL-CIO) |
| Office location | New York City |
| Country | United States |
The Hebrew Actors' Union (HAU) was a craft union for actors in Yiddish theater in the United States (primarily in New York City), and was the first actors' union in the United States. The union was affiliated with the Associated Actors and Artistes of America of the AFL.
The Hebrew Actors' Union was officially founded in 1899 by Jewish labor leader Joseph Barondess, who had been sent by the United Hebrew Trades to aid striking actors at the People's Theatre. The Union was closely associated from its beginning with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and with the general and Jewish labor movement.
A 1925 article in The New York Times described the union as having, at that time, "over three hundred" members, and notes that it has, "not only placed all of its members in good positions, but [that] it has also granted many privileges to non-members..." It also notes that, "A great many members of the union are American-born and all of them are thoroughly Americanized." The union represented "performers (except musicians) who are engaged in the field of Hebrew or Yiddish Language Theater."
Yiddish theater was at the height of its popularity in the 1920s and even into the 1930s, when Yiddish theater attendance had already started to decrease, the Union claimed a robust membership and there was enough of an audience to maintain quite a few Yiddish theaters throughout the country. A variety of factors, including the Great Depression, the continued acculturation of the American Jewish population and the movement of Jewish audiences towards Broadway and motion pictures and the lack of new audiences that accompanied the end of immigration combined to erode the audience for the Yiddish theater. Theaters began to close, theatrical seasons were cut short and several of the biggest stars of the Yiddish theater left for the non-Yiddish stage or Hollywood.
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