Hackesches Court Theater

A quarter of the tenants in the Hackesche Höfen at the beginning of the Third Reich were of Jewish origin. From 1912 to 1933, the home for girls of the Berlin chapter of the Jüdischer Frauenbund (founded in 1904) was located there, and social work was one of its most important fields of work. Here, single, gainfully employed young girls could find accommodation for little money. At that time, many Eastern European Orthodox Jews/Jüd:innen fled the Russian pogroms and brought Yiddish theater and music to Berlin.*

From 1993 to 2006, the Hackesche Hoftheater (Rosenthaler Str. 40, 10178 Berlin) as free Künstler:inneninitiative, which made it its business to cultivate the Yiddish-influenced culture of the district by „(…) establishing at least three concerts with Yiddish music every week and the „Days of Yiddish Music“ at the beginning of each year, as well as the almost two-month-long Yiddish Music Summer“ [1] . Dedicated artists:inside began to perform Yiddish theater on site again almost simultaneously. Yiddish song theater was considered the trademark of the small Berlin playhouse! With its extensive program the theater was Europe-wide without comparison. 

Due to the rent increase the location in the Hackesche Höfen could no longer be paid in 2006 and the theater had to close. Since then, the Trägerverein “Philomimos e.V.” (https://www.facebook.com/philomimos/) organizes a Klezmer festival twice a year in the Storkower Bögen in Berlin-Lichtenberg.

*More information on the variety and diversity of social commitment of the Jüdischer Frauenbund can be found, for example,  at https://www.hagalil.com/newsletter/nl/04-06-15.htm 

[1] https://www.hackesches-hoftheater.de/