Te’ater. A bi-monthly journal. Numbers 1 - 5/6 (all published). Edited by Michoel Weichert. Designed by Henryk Berlewi.

(THEATER).

Yiddish Actors Union

Warsaw

April, 1925 - February, 1926

Yiddish text. Numerous photographic illustrations.

Theater director and producer, writer, lawyer, teacher Michoel Weichert (1890-1967) played an important role in the development of Yiddish theater in Poland between the wars and staged many plays with the celebrated Vilna Troupe. He founded the Yiddish Drama School (1922), the Yiddish Repertory Theater (1929), and the Yung Teater (1933). During World War II he organized and presided over the Zydowska Samopomoc Spoleczna (ZSS - Jewish Social Self-help) to provide relief to Jewish inmates in the concentration camps and to intervene on behalf of Jewish prisoners. When this organization closed in 1942, Weichert founded, with Nazi consent, the Judische Unterstutzungstelle (JUS), which received aid from Jewish organizations abroad. This activity led to postwar charges of collaboration with the Nazis. Although Weichert was exonerated at a trial held in Cracow in 1946, he remained a controversial figure. In 1958, he left Poland for Israel, where he published a four-volume autobiography. (YIVO). See also https://blog.nli.org.il/en/jewishlettersreturn/.