State Jewish Theater (Romania)

Teatrul Evreiesc de Stat (TES, the State Jewish Theater) in Bucharest, Romania is a theater specializing in Jewish-related plays. It is the oldest Yiddish-language theater with uninterrupted activity in the world. Its contemporary repertoire includes plays by Jewish authors, plays on Jewish topics, and plays in Yiddish (which are performed with simultaneous translation into Romanian, using headphones installed in the theater in the 1970s). Many of the plays also feature Jewish actors.

A precursor, the Teatru Evreiesc Baraşeum operated as a Jewish theater through most of World War II, although they were closed during the few months of the National Legionary State, and thereafter performed in Romanian rather than Yiddish through until the fall of Ion Antonescu.

The Jewish Theatre in Romania has a tradition dating back to the 19th century. The first newspaper reference to a Jewish theater in Romania was a review by Mihai Eminescu in the Romanian newspaper Curierul de Iaşi (The Courier of Iaşi) in 1876, in which he described a troupe of six Jewish actors who performed in the famous Green Tree garden of Iaşi under Avram Goldfaden’s management, the father of the modern Jewish Theatre.

In Bucharest, the theater building, the Teatru Baraşeum or Sala Baraşeum, was used from the early 1930s as a Yiddish-language theater, originally under private management. The theater was named in honor of Dr. Iuliu Barasch, as was an adjoining clinic. (The street it is on, the former str. Ionescu de la Brad, is now str. Dr. Iuliu Barasch.) On the verge of World War II, it was home of the Thalia company, one of four professional Yiddish theater companies in Bucharest at that time.

As war broke out in Europe and the antisemitic right-wing politics that had long been a factor in Romania came to the fore, resources for Yiddish theater in Bucharest dried up. In the summer of 1940, all four Bucharest-based Yiddish theater companies, including Thalia, set out on tours of the country rather than attempt summer theater in Bucharest. Thalia were on the road when King Carol II abdicated on September 6, 1940, the start of the National Legionary State under General (later Marshal) Ion Antonescu. The extremely antisemitic Iron Guard became the only legal political party in Romania. On September 9, Jews were prohibited from participating in theater. All Jews were fired from artistic or administrative positions at the National Theater and others, and the country's Yiddish-language companies had their licenses revoked. Public use of the Yiddish language was also banned.

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