Leonard Cohen once denounced Yiddish. Why did he perform this Yiddish folk song?
It may have been a way to work out his Holocaust trauma.
Theodore Bikel
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Culture A Year After His Death, Theodore Bikel Continues To Defy Typecasting
It’s been just a little over a year since Theodore Bikel died — he passed away a year ago July at age 91 — and as such, his legacy has yet to be cemented. This is undoubtedly due in part to the difficulty of encapsulating the legacy of a veritable Zelig – an Austrian-born Zionist…
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Culture Theo Bikel, Prophet of His People
In Deuteronomy 18:18 Moses says that God has told him, “I will raise up a prophet from among your own people. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to the people all that I command him.” Theo Bikel, who passed away July 21, was, I believe, such a prophet in…
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Culture Folksbiene Pays Homage to Jewish Broadway — in English
What’s so Jewish about Broadway? The National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene’s production of “Another Hundred Years” showcases the Jewish influence on Broadway from the beginning of the 20th century until the present day. Last week’s one-time performance gave us a preview of the extended 90-minute version of the show in the works for the near future….
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The Schmooze Remembering My Friend, Theo Bikel
Theodore Bikel, actor, activist, Yiddishist, and multi-lingual folksinger — who died on July 21 at 91 — has had a “home” in my piano bench since the 1960s where his well-thumbed “Folksongs and Footnotes” tome rests, as do his vintage recordings on my shelves. I first met Bikel on March 5, 1978 when he was the guest…
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Culture Remembering Theo Bikel, a Fighter to the End
Theodore Bikel, who has died at the age of 91 in Los Angeles, was a shtarker, unlike many showbiz stars who merely play shtarkers on TV or onscreen. The barrel-chested, booming-voiced actor and singer had talent and stamina, the kind that allowed him to play Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” over 2000 times. After…
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The Schmooze Theodore Bikel, Guardian of Yiddishkeit, Honored By YIVO
“I have to sing!… It is a need bigger than eating” a young, handsome Theodore Bikel declares in a clip from Murray Lerner’s 1967 film of the Newport Festival which was shown at the YIVO’s 13th Annual Heritage Luncheon at the Center for Jewish History honoring 91 year old Bikel. In the film, Bikel is…
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Culture When the Legendary Theodore Bikel Turned 90
Broadway star, Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning film and TV actor, folk singer, recording artist, radio host, raconteur, advocate for the arts, international human rights activist — Theodore Bikel has been all of these things and more over the course of his long and intensely rich career, and he’s still going relatively strong at the age…
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