Event is Live
Presented by YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and American Society for Jewish Music’s Jewish Music Forum
Yiddish Theater, George Gershwin, and the Birth of an American Sound
Tuesday, May 5, 2026
1 PM
Online
As a teenager, George Gershwin attended Yiddish theater regularly. One famous production from that time period was Khantshe in Amerike, by Joseph Rumshinsky, which featured a working-class woman asserting her rights and her desires. Not only did the show include a suffragette parade, it has also been described as the first Yiddish musical to incorporate American-inspired rhythms. This lecture by Ronald Robboy will explore the idea that Gershwin’s internalization of Black Americans’ music was influenced by his early immersion in Yiddish theater.
Part of: United in Sound America at 250
Performers
Ronald Robboy