ABSTRACT
The arrival of Jacob Adler and his company towards the end of 1883 lifted Yiddish theatre in Whitechapel to new heights. For a brief period, it also made London the centre of the Yiddish theatre world. Semi-derelict and covered in old Bengali film posters, this sad-looking structure had a glorious past, having opened its doors in 1912 as a Yiddish opera house. Built in the then fashionable Moorish style with domes and minarets, its forgotten history was one of the revelations of exhibition. By the 1900s the global Yiddish theatre economy was on the rise. New playwrights gave a fresh impetus to the Yiddish theatre scene in Russia and Poland. For Whitechapel's many Yiddish theatre devotees there could scarcely have been more devastating news. For the Jewish immigrant quarter, the 1870s and 1880s were years of instability and flux, a transient time for both actors and audience.
