Records of the Friends of Ida Kaminska Theatre Foundation, Inc.

Ida Kaminska (1899-1980) was a Polish Yiddish actress. The daughter of Esther Rokhel Kaminska, also a world-renowned Yiddish actress, and Abraham Izhok Kaminski, a Yiddish actor, playwright, and director, Kaminska began her acting career as a young child. In 1922, Kaminska founded the Warsaw Yiddish Art Theater (1922) with her first husband, the Yiddish actor and director Zygmont Turkow, and during WWII, after escaping Warsaw to Russian-occupied Lvov, Kaminska became the director of the Soviet funded Yiddish theater. After the war, Kaminska returned to Poland and established what would become the State Yiddish Theater in Poland, which was in existence until 1968. Ida Kaminska and her second husband, Meir Melman, also a Yiddish actor, immigrated to America in 1968. Shortly thereafter, Kaminska began attempts at establishing a Yiddish Art Theater in New York.

The Friends of Ida Kaminska Theatre Foundation was established in 1969. Housed in the American Jewish Congress and run out of the offices of Julius Schatz, director of the American Jewish Congress Commission on Jewish Affairs, the purpose of the foundation was to help Kaminska establish, organize, fund, and promote the Ida Kaminska Theatre. During the foundation’s early stages, a board of directors was organized that included rabbis, Jewish communal leaders, and several prominent American Yiddish theater artists such as the actress, Celia Adler, the set-designer, Sam Leve, and the composer, Sholem Secunda, among others. The Executive Board consisted of B.Z Goldberg (Chairman), Rabbi Shepherd Z. Baum (Vice-Chairman), Julius Schatz (Secretary), and Miriam Gittelson (Treasurer). Julius Schatz and Miriam Gittelson were responsible for the majority of the foundation’s activities including management, fundraising, and promotion. In 1970, the Friends of Ida Kaminska Theatre was incorporated as a tax-exempt, non-profit organization.

Although there was public interest in a new functioning Yiddish art theater, the foundation faced difficulty in finding the funding needed for its permanent establishment. On March 18, 1971, a fundraising drive, news conference, and reception was held at the home of Thedore Bikel, the Yiddish actor and a member of the foundation’s board of directors. The hope was to raise $100,000. Though several prominent members of the theatrical world were in attendance including Joesph Papp, Jonathan Burrows, and Julie Garfield, the event failed to raise more than half of the hoped-for funds. In 1971, the Foundation received a $10,000 grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.

In 1972, the foundation was able to secure a three week engagement for Ida Kaminska and her theater troupe to perform Glickl Hameln Demands Justice, which ended on February 27, 1972. A second four-week engagement of the production began on April 2th, 1972, at the Community House of the Central Synagogue in New York. Though the production received favorable reviews, ticket sales were extremely low, leaving the foundation financially unstable. The foundation found itself in debt and in 1973, in the hopes of being able to raise some funds, began selling copies of an English translation of Kaminska’s memoir, Ida Kaminska: My Life, My Theater. This attempt proved unsuccessful and the foundation seems to have disbanded shortly thereafter, though Julius Schatz and Miriam Gittleson continued to be responsible for the foundation’s finances, including its outstanding taxes, until 1975.