Yiddish film

Yiddish cinema (Yiddish: יידישע קינא, יידיש-שפראכיגע קינא‎; trans. Idish-Sprakhige Kino, Idishe Kino) refers to the film industry in the Yiddish language. Some 130 full-length motion pictures and 30 short ones were produced during its heyday, between 1911 and 1940. Yiddish film almost disappeared after World War II, due to the Holocaust and the linguistic acculturation of Jewish immigrants, though new pictures are still made sporadically.

In September 1911, at the Minsk Electric Theatre, a Jewish troupe led by one A.M. Smolarsky accompanied a short projection of silent motion pictures with the Yiddish song A Brivele der Mamen (Letter to Mother). This was the first documented instance that may be considered as Yiddish cinema. At the very same time, short silent films with Yiddish intertitles were already spontaneously being directed for the Jewish public in the Pale of Settlement and Congress Poland. The most notable producer was the Warsaw-based Mordka Towbin, whose studio Siła released four short features adapted from the plays of Jacob Gordin within the year: Der Vilder Foter ("Cruel Father"), with Zina Goldstein and Ester Rachel Kaminska, directed by Marek Arnstein; der Metoiref ("The Madman"); Got, mentsh un tayvl ("God, Man and Satan"); and Mirele Efros. Another series of similar shorts based on plays were directed by a further Warsaw studio, Kosmofilm, founded by Shmuel Ginzberg and Henryk Finkelstein. Both companies employed the prominent actors of the city's Yiddish theater scene. In total, including several ones meted out in Russia, some 20 silent court métrage pictures with Yiddish titles were made before the end of World War I.

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