Talk:Vilna Troupe

message: Someone might want to get hold of "On Stage, Off Stage: Memories of a Lifetime in the Yiddish Theatre" by Luba Kadison, Joseph Buloff, and Irving Genn. Kadison and Buloff started with the Vilna troupe. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:05, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)
Also apparently there is material on the Vilna Troupe in Irving Howe's World of our Fathers. - Jmabel | Talk 18:50, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Further possible sources

message: I've done my best to spell names appropriately; in most cases all I had to go from was Bercovici's sometimes idiosyncratic Romanian orthography. Also, I'm almost shooting in the dark as to which names deserve links: it's hard to know who there may be more material about, especially because little of it is on line, and presumably much of it is in Yiddish, a language in which I am illiterate. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:26, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
===Renewing "names" discussion November 2008===
Dahn and I just had a brief exchange about some of this on my user talk page, but I thought it would be better to move the discussion back here.
Many Jewish names have more than one possible spelling, and many of these people traveled extensively. Most were born and raised writing their names in Hebrew or Cyrillic characters, and the Latinizations varied from country to country. For example someone born Yakov was likely to be Iacob in Bucharest and Jacob in New York. 
Wherever we have a spelling from a good English-language source, we should follow that, unless we have a specific reason to consider it wrong. For example, spellings from the New York Times should be very reliable. When we are going from (for example) Romanian-language sources, or sources in non-Latin alphabets, we have some decisions to make. Let's discuss them here. - Jmabel | Talk 00:09, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm absolutely fine with that. I will stress again that I don't want to go with the Romanianized versions, it's just that one source I have access to lists them as such, and I needed help figuring out if these have a standardized form in English (or relevant Yiddish transliteration other than the Romanian one). This is a prequel to a series of edits I plan in this article, most of them having to do with the Troupe's Bucharest period. To give you some insight for now: the main source I have discusses at length the contribution the Troupe had in introducing Romania to modernism in general and Expressionism in particular (I also have another source who disputes the Expressionist connection); it also deals with some other interesting stuff - from the warm reception offered to the Troupe by Romania's avant-garde and left-wing environment to its contribution in uniting a section of the local public opinion against antisemitism (some of this is referred to in the text, but not in as much detail). Dahn (talk) 00:27, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

text: Okay. Just to make it easier on other editors who may want to join in, I'll paste the actors' list as it appears in my source (Cernat). Most of the variations are based on Romanian transliterations, and are easy to tell apart from the others. Sic: "Iosif Bolov, Iacob Weisliz, Hana Braz, Liuba Kadison, Beniamin Ehren-Krantz, Alexandr Stein, Judith Lares, Hana Mogel, Miriam Orleska, Haim Brakasch, Iosif Kalmen, Samuel Scaftel, Helene Gottlieb, Aizic Samberg." Dahn (talk) 00:27, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  In English "Iosif Bolov" ==> "Joseph Buloff" (who definitely deserves an article); "Iosif" ==> "Joseph"; "Iacob" ==> "Jacob" unless we have English-language sources using, say, "Yakov"; "Hana" ==> "Hanna"; as discussed on my user talk page, "Liuba" ==> "Luba" and Liuba Kadison definitely deserves an article as does her father Leib Kadison; "Beniamin" ==> "Benjamin"; "Alexandr" ==> most likely "Alexander", but also can use the very Slavic "Aleksandr" and some other variants, I'd hope for an English-language source; "Haim" ==> usually "Chaim"; "Aizic" ==> "Isaac" unless we have English-language sources using, say, "Yitzhak". Other than that, no immediate guesses or opinions. - Jmabel | Talk 01:01, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, what I'm hoping for is that we eventually have an attested variant for each of the names. I will certainly not be pushing for the Romanian variant - even those few who are (if I understood correctly) guesses are more relevant than the Romanian transliteration (and, as I have said, the Romanian transliteration itself looks to be approximate and inconsistent). In any case, I'll follow your lead on this and the redlinks, but I agree we would still need to clear those relatively few cases where we just don't know what the names of these persons actually were (not Boloff-Bolov, but Kalmen-Kelmen-Kamen et al.), or at least have the article confront sources who say different. Dahn (talk) 01:18, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

text:  Oh, and I'm pretty sure of "Samuel Schäftel", "Scaftel" is a name I've never seen and it gets exactly 1 GHit. But could be Schaftel without an umlaut. - Jmabel | Talk 01:06, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm ready to assume that myself. If there's one problem with Cernat's book is that it was rather poorly edited. For example, the very paragraph I quoted from above says muilte (a non-existing word) instead of multe ("many"). Then again, since it appears to be based on original reviews, it may reflect the atrocious spelling in those sources. Dahn (talk) 01:18, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

text:  IMDB's page for The Dybbuk has (believe it or not) the spelling Ajzyk Samberg, which looks really weird to me. Maybe a Polish or Lithuanian transliteration? - Jmabel | Talk 01:12, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Presumably Polish. Dahn (talk) 01:18, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Names

message: Dahn and I just had a brief exchange about some of this on my user talk page, but I thought it would be better to move the discussion back here.
Many Jewish names have more than one possible spelling, and many of these people traveled extensively. Most were born and raised writing their names in Hebrew or Cyrillic characters, and the Latinizations varied from country to country. For example someone born Yakov was likely to be Iacob in Bucharest and Jacob in New York. 
Wherever we have a spelling from a good English-language source, we should follow that, unless we have a specific reason to consider it wrong. For example, spellings from the New York Times should be very reliable. When we are going from (for example) Romanian-language sources, or sources in non-Latin alphabets, we have some decisions to make. Let's discuss them here. - Jmabel | Talk 00:09, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm absolutely fine with that. I will stress again that I don't want to go with the Romanianized versions, it's just that one source I have access to lists them as such, and I needed help figuring out if these have a standardized form in English (or relevant Yiddish transliteration other than the Romanian one). This is a prequel to a series of edits I plan in this article, most of them having to do with the Troupe's Bucharest period. To give you some insight for now: the main source I have discusses at length the contribution the Troupe had in introducing Romania to modernism in general and Expressionism in particular (I also have another source who disputes the Expressionist connection); it also deals with some other interesting stuff - from the warm reception offered to the Troupe by Romania's avant-garde and left-wing environment to its contribution in uniting a section of the local public opinion against antisemitism (some of this is referred to in the text, but not in as much detail). Dahn (talk) 00:27, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

text: Okay. Just to make it easier on other editors who may want to join in, I'll paste the actors' list as it appears in my source (Cernat). Most of the variations are based on Romanian transliterations, and are easy to tell apart from the others. Sic: "Iosif Bolov, Iacob Weisliz, Hana Braz, Liuba Kadison, Beniamin Ehren-Krantz, Alexandr Stein, Judith Lares, Hana Mogel, Miriam Orleska, Haim Brakasch, Iosif Kalmen, Samuel Scaftel, Helene Gottlieb, Aizic Samberg." Dahn (talk) 00:27, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  In English "Iosif Bolov" ==> "Joseph Buloff" (who definitely deserves an article); "Iosif" ==> "Joseph"; "Iacob" ==> "Jacob" unless we have English-language sources using, say, "Yakov"; "Hana" ==> "Hanna"; as discussed on my user talk page, "Liuba" ==> "Luba" and Liuba Kadison definitely deserves an article as does her father Leib Kadison; "Beniamin" ==> "Benjamin"; "Alexandr" ==> most likely "Alexander", but also can use the very Slavic "Aleksandr" and some other variants, I'd hope for an English-language source; "Haim" ==> usually "Chaim"; "Aizic" ==> "Isaac" unless we have English-language sources using, say, "Yitzhak". Other than that, no immediate guesses or opinions. - Jmabel | Talk 01:01, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, what I'm hoping for is that we eventually have an attested variant for each of the names. I will certainly not be pushing for the Romanian variant - even those few who are (if I understood correctly) guesses are more relevant than the Romanian transliteration (and, as I have said, the Romanian transliteration itself looks to be approximate and inconsistent). In any case, I'll follow your lead on this and the redlinks, but I agree we would still need to clear those relatively few cases where we just don't know what the names of these persons actually were (not Boloff-Bolov, but Kalmen-Kelmen-Kamen et al.), or at least have the article confront sources who say different. Dahn (talk) 01:18, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

text:  Oh, and I'm pretty sure of "Samuel Schäftel", "Scaftel" is a name I've never seen and it gets exactly 1 GHit. But could be Schaftel without an umlaut. - Jmabel | Talk 01:06, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm ready to assume that myself. If there's one problem with Cernat's book is that it was rather poorly edited. For example, the very paragraph I quoted from above says muilte (a non-existing word) instead of multe ("many"). Then again, since it appears to be based on original reviews, it may reflect the atrocious spelling in those sources. Dahn (talk) 01:18, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

text:  IMDB's page for The Dybbuk has (believe it or not) the spelling Ajzyk Samberg, which looks really weird to me. Maybe a Polish or Lithuanian transliteration? - Jmabel | Talk 01:12, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Presumably Polish. Dahn (talk) 01:18, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Renewing "names" discussion November 2008

message: Luba Kadison Buloff (mentioned above at #Further possible sources) died Thurs at home aged 99 (December 14 1906, Kovno, Lithuania - May 4 2006, Manhattan) (per NYTimes, Tues May 9, citing dau Barbara B.). She (& fa. Leib Kadison & the Troupe) "moved to Warsaw" "[s]oon after the war" (WWI).  Met Joseph Buloff (d. 1983) in Poland, where he joined the Troupe, married him in 1923.  Both to NYC, "[f]ive yrs later" ('28, presumably), on invitation of Maurice Schwarz, impressario of Yiddish Art Theater. JB went on to Broadway; she played Linda Loman in the Yiddish Death of a Salesman, performed into the late 1950s, then taught acting, and interpreted for Soviet Jewish immigrants.--Jerzy•t 16:01, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kadisons 

message: There may be more useful content in the cited Roshwald & Stites 2002 source. It should be available online with Google Books. - Jmabel | Talk 23:30, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roshwald & Stites 2002 

message: Quite a bit on them in the New York Times archives. I'll start adding items here, without worrying yet what belongs in the article. - Jmabel | Talk 01:25, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''NYT'' archives 

message: I came to realize that I never did conduct a search for Romanian-language online sources. Well, I just did, and some interesting stuff came up: this mentions that Mihail Sebastian adapted the Deluge for based on the Vilna Troupe performance (it also has a fragment where Sebastian offers praise to the troupe); this has a reprint of a 1929 Cuvântul article, which, starting with its headline ("The Vilna Troupe Returns"), may help clarify just what happened after 1926. There isn't much else, afaics. Dahn (talk) 04:27, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: This side of the pond