Speaker: David Mazower.
Venue: Marian Oppenheim Hall, Edinburgh Hebrew Congregation, 4 Salisbury Road, Edinburgh.
Time: 8pm.
Event Description: Ever since the 1880s, Yiddish actors had entertained London's Jewish immigrants with tear-jerking melodramas, satires on religious orthodoxy and romantic comedies. The Jewish workers of Whitechapel flocked to the Yiddish theatre with as much devotion as devout believers went to synagogue.

By the early twentieth century, almost every public house, workers' club and grand Victorian playhouse in London's East End had hosted companies of professional Yiddish actors. But in 1912 a new dream was fulfilled - Europe's first purpose-built Yiddish theatre and opera house opened in one of London's poorest districts, close to the docks.

The Faynman Yiddish People’s Theatre was a unique enterprise in theatre history – a Yiddish playhouse financed entirely by immigrant workers. Inspired by Russian art theatre, it was built in memory of Zigmund Faynman, a popular actor-manager. The theatre opened in March 1912 with a production of the world’s first Yiddish grand opera and went on to stage highly-praised Yiddish versions of Italian opera as well as the best of the Yiddish dramatic repertoire.

However, within weeks the theatre was in financial crisis and it closed its doors just months after the gala opening. It reopened as a cinema, eventually specialising in Asian films for the area's new immigrants.

David Mazower will use rare photographs and documents to illustrate the personalities behind the theatre, and the vibrant cosmopolitan immigrant culture from which it grew. Part of the vanished world of Whitechapel Jewry, the story of the Faynman Yiddish People's Theatre illuminates the extraordinary thirst for culture and self-improvement of the immigrant masses who left the Russian Empire to make new lives in Western Europe and the United States.

David Mazower is a journalist with BBC World Service Radio in London, where he edits the daily talkshow 'World Have Your Say.' He is the author of 'Yiddish Theatre in London' and numerous articles on Anglo-Jewish history, Jewish art, and Yiddish culture. Current projects include a book on Yiddish culture in Britain, and an exhibition of Jewish folk art from the Islamic world.
Cost: £3/£2 (Concessions).
Contact: Steve Engleman, steve.engleman@blueyonder.co.uk, 0131 447 0911.