Yiddish language films
Movies in which the majority of the spoken word is in Yiddish
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- DirectorJoseph GreenKonrad TomStarsMolly PiconEdmund ZayendaGertrude BulmanMamele embraces the entire gamut of interwar Jewish life in Lodz - tenements and unemployed Jews, nightclubs and gangsters, religious Jews celebrating Sukkot - but the film belongs to Molly Picon who romps undaunted through her dutiful daughter role saving siblings, keeping the family intact, singing and acting her way through the stages of a woman's life from childhood to old age.
- DirectorJoseph GreenJan Nowina-PrzybylskiStarsMolly PiconMax BozykLeon LiebgoldA young woman posing as a man in a group of klezmer musicians in Poland.
- DirectorJoseph SeidenStarsLili LilianaJoseph SchoengoldBerthe HartJenny is a young woman torn between two childhood boyfriends. Refusing to marry Joseph, who has become a rabbi, she elopes instead with Jack, an actor who makes her pregnant and eventually abandons her.
- DirectorMichal WaszynskiStarsAvrom MorewskiAjzyk SambergMojzesz LipmanThe mystical love story between Chonen, a poor Talmud student, and Lea, a girl from a wealthy family, depicts the traditional folk culture of Polish Jews before WW2.
- DirectorJacob Ben-AmiEdgar G. UlmerStarsMichael GorrinHelen BeverleyIsidore CashierUlmer's soulful, open-air adaptation of Peretz Hirshbein's classic play heralded the Golden Age of Yiddish cinema. When an ascetic young scholar ventures into the countryside, searching for the city of "true Jews," he learns some unexpected lessons from the Jewish peasants who take him in as a tutor for their children.
- DirectorSidney M. GoldinStarsAnna AppelLazar FreedSamuel Kelemer
- DirectorSidney M. GoldinAubrey ScottoStarsMaurice SchwartzJudith AbarbanelMark SchweidWealthy, powerful sweatshop owner falls in love with employee's teenage daughter, who feels obligated to marry him after he shares his wealth with her parents, though she actually loves a young Marxist unionizer.
- DirectorHarry ThomashefskyStarsEsther AdlerJacob BergreenMiriam GrossmanSetting off from Vilna to spend his last days in the Holy Land, an arrogant old man spurns the youngest of his three daughters and leaves his fortune in the wrong hands.
- DirectorGeorge RolandStarsLeo FuchsYetta ZwerlingA lively short about a husband and wife who seek to reignite their marriage by pretending to be landlady and tenant.
- DirectorJoseph GreenJan Nowina-PrzybylskiStarsMiriam KressynZygmunt TurkowHy JacobsonGetsel, a wandering Purim player, comes to a Galica village and gets a job with Reb Nuchem, the shoemaker. He falls in love with Esther, the shoemaker's daughter, but knows she is in love with a wandering circus player. However, Getzel is content in his work and dreams. Esther's father inherits a fortune and attempts to marry her to a man of his choice, but she flees with Getzel to Warsaw, where he meets and marries the circus player. Getzel returns to the village and is blamed for Esther's disappearance until she shows up and explains what happened. Getzel shoulders his pack and wanders on to another village.
- DirectorIlya MotyleffSidney M. GoldinStarsMoyshe OysherFlorence WeissJudith AbarbanelThis musical drama marks the screen debut of Moishe Oysher, in a film critic J. Hoberman calls an "anti-Jazz Singer." Oysher stars as a wayward youth who makes his way from his Polish shtetl to New York's Lower East Side where he is "discovered" and becomes a well-known singer. Ultimately, he returns home to the Old Country and reunites with his parents and his childhood sweetheart.
- DirectorEdgar G. UlmerBen-Zvi BaratoffOssip DymowStarsMoyshe OysherMiriam RiselleFlorence WeissMoishe Oysher gives his most robust performance as a passionate shtetl blacksmith who must struggle against temptation to become a mensch. Ulmer's film is a musical version of David Pinski's classic 1906 play Yankl der Schmid.
- DirectorJoseph GreenLeon TrystanStarsLucy GehrmanMisha GehrmanMax BozykOne of the last Yiddish films made in Poland before the Nazi invasion, this film tells the story of a mother's persistent struggles to support her three children in pre-war World War II Polish Ukraine. After her family is pulled apart by severe poverty and the turmoil of war, she and her children make their way to New York and turn to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society for help.
- DirectorEdgar G. UlmerStarsDavid OpatoshuHelen BeverleyIsidore CashierIn a small town in Russia in the 1880s, two young but poor lovers are helped by a wise old bookseller.
- DirectorMaurice SchwartzStarsMaurice SchwartzMiriam RiselleRebecca WeintraubThe original, non-musical film version of the book which inspired "Fiddler on the Roof".
- DirectorJoseph SeidenStarsChaim TauberSeymour RechzeitYetta ZwerlingMotl, a poor laborer, loving husband and new father, leads cloakmakers in a strike for better working conditions. When he is severely injured by strikebreakers, his wife, Esther, and infant son are left destitute. Desperate to save her starving child, Esther gives him up for adoption to a wealthy couple, and then commits suicide.
- DirectorEdgar G. UlmerStarsLeo FuchsJudith AbarbanelJudel DubinskyNat Silver has been engaged 7 times already. This time, his 8th, he's really going to get married. But a visitor shows up, Shirley's old boyfriend. With a gun ! He'll kill himself unless he can have Shirley back, and Nat graciously gives in. According to Nat's mother, his Uncle Shya was unlucky at love but lucky as a matchmaker, and Nat is just like Shya. Nat tells his family he's going to Italy. But he remains in New York and sets himself up with a new name and new business, Nat Gold, Advisor in Human Relations...
- DirectorJoseph SeidenStarsMax BadinEsther FieldIzidor FrankelAn elderly couple, Mendel and Hannah Shapiro, need to raise money to hang onto their farm and turn to their adult children for help.
- DirectorJoseph SeidenStarsEsta SalzmanMax BadinRose GreenfieldA young woman tries to repay her adoptive parents' kindness by shielding their biological child, who has gotten involved with an embezzler, from the police.
- DirectorMax NosseckStarsMoyshe OysherFlorence WeissMaurice KrohnerA jewish cantor is seduced by the allure of opera when introduced to it by two attractive young Poles.
- DirectorJoseph SeidenStarsCharlotte GoldsteinMichael RosenbergEsta SalzmanThis rarely-seen later work by Yiddish cinema mogul Joseph Seiden observes the hardships and heartaches of three sisters as they seek romantic happiness, while struggling to remain faithful to the traditions of their parents. Kino Now
- DirectorJosef BerneStarsAl MurraySylvia FederMiriam FederA Jewish resort hotel celebrates a pair of longtime customers' fiftieth wedding anniversary by staging an old-fashioned Borscht Belt show replete with singers, dancers, comedians and impressionists. The show concludes with a fervent musical tribute to the year-old State of Israel. Filmed on location at Young's Gap Hotel in Parksville, New York and includes glimpses of the golf course, tennis matches, calisthenics classes and sunbathers.
- DirectorJoseph SeidenStarsMichal MichaleskoGustav BergerBerta GerstenBased on a play by Jacob Gordin, God, Man and Devil centers on a wager between God and Satan that has dire consequences. Beware, the film cautions, when money sounds sweeter than music.