Rochl Holzer and the Transnational Aesthetic of the Australian Yiddish Stage

For her Australian debut in the Yiddish theatre, Holzer chose a Polish feminist play she translated into Yiddish (Three Women, 1939). She became the first woman in Australia to direct a Yiddish play, a vocal advocate of Yiddish culture when assimilation policies required migrants to adopt Australian way of life, and an avid defender of human rights, widely remembered for her enactment of the Ukrainian poem Babi Yar in Yiddish translation to the mostly non-Yiddish speaking audience (1966). This paper investigates Holzer’s work in the Australian Yiddish theatre, focusing on her efforts of translating languages and cultures to break silence, emancipate and memorialize.