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Pepi Litman (born Peshe Kahane, 1874 [?]-1930) was a cross-dressing female Yiddish singer associated with the Broderzinger movement. Litman led a popular traveling theater troupe around Europe, performing highly satirical songs while costumed as a male Chosid. She made numerous 78rpm recordings which capture her energetic & virtuosic singing style & also stand as a document of Jewish life in Eastern Europe.

Background & Early Life
Litman was born to poor Jewish parents in Tarnopol, a city in eastern Galitsye (now in Poland). The region was part of the Austrian Empire, where Jews were relatively free to work & travel. However, a poor Jewish girl with no dowry faced very limited life prospects in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe, usually working uncompensated all her life to support her parents, husband, children and in-laws.

in her youth, Litman worked as a maid in the home of Max Badin, an actor who later appeared in American Yiddish films; and since she had a good singing voice she soon got involved with the itinerant Yiddish vaudevillians known as the Broderzinger [Yiddish for "The Singers From Brod."].

The Broderzingers are credited with creating the earliest form of secular Yiddish theater in East European pubs, cafes, & wine gardens. Their performances combined elements of the traditional rabbinical court jester, the badkhn or wedding jester, and the Purimshpil. Besides providing comic entertainment, the Broderzingers were influenced by the Jewish Enlightenment, or Haskalah, to advocate modernization, education and emancipation for Jews. Some Broderzinger songs satirized Hasidism; others were sung from the point of view of working-class proste yidn [Yiddish: simple folk] such as nightwatchmen, water carriers, gravediggers, housemaids and beggars.

Pepi married a Broderzinger, Jacob Litman or Littman, who ran his own travelling theatre troupe. After his death she took over the troupe herself, touring around inns, small towns, health spas, cities & even private homes in Russia, Poland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, & Rumania..

Eyewitness accounts
According to eyewitness accounts cited by Zylbercweig's Lekskikon fun Yidishn Teater, Pepi Litman spoke several languages, frequented literary Yiddish circles, & observed Jewish law as much as she could on the road, by keeping kosher & lighting Shabes candles.

Jacob Mestel, a co-editor of the Leksikon, called her "a chansonette in Hasidic trousers."

Zylbercweig quotes another eyewitness account:

"Dressed as a Khosid, in a big fur hat above curly peyes framing her round, full feminine face, in a wide unbuttoned coat with short trousers, white socks & pumps, with her hands twirling her peyes, she would burst from behind the curtains singing; & instantly, like lightning, set the audience on fire, both on the floor & in the balconies—as choirboys & merchants, tailors & doctors, maids & madames caught on to her melodies & sang along with her.

"Pepi Litman had a masculine voice, deep & hoarse, but anyone who once heard her 'Yismekhu' could never forget it."

In 1910, journalist M. J. Landa reviewed Litman's performance in Lemberg, Poland as part of a "Zydowska Kabaretu" [Polish: "Jewish Cabaret"]. Landa wrote:

"She was the 'star' of the program.....The moment she stepped on the stage, dressed as a Galician youth, with skull cap & ringlets, the whole atmosphere of the room was different. It was dominated by a personality.....Frankly, I do not think I have heard a female comic singer with a voice of greater power & possibility. I preferred it to the cultured voice of the lady in a black evening dress who crooned operatic airs with ease & effect, & afterward wheedled members of the audience into buying her portrait postcards. Pepi Littmnn's voice is a rich, clear mezzo of operatic fullness & breadth & there are moments when it is quite thrilling. At others, again, it sounds almost harsh — this when she is engaged in repartee with her audience. She banters & expostulates with her hearers, always good humoredly & seems to take as much delight in her singing & in her patter as they do. She is the incarnation of the joyous spirit of the Jew, with moments of pathos & sentiment. Listening to her singing of "Shabbos After Table" & "Kol Yisrael Chaverim,' & also an amusing ditty about the Messiah coming in an automobile, I forgot that I was in Galicia—forgot the horrible depressing poverty with which I had been surrounded for some days...."

Career & Associates
From about 1905 to 1930, Litman performed in Germany (especially in spa towns like Marienbad & Karlsbad), Hungary (in Budapest), Poland (especially in Lemberg/Lviv), Russia (especially in Odessa), & probably in America, since she recorded several 78RPM discs in New York.

In addition to her 1907 New York recordings on the Columbia record label,

USER NADNIE'S EDITING NOTES (Move to Talk before publishing??):
From Halász, T. (2010, October 27). Theater: Hungarian Theater. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Retrieved December 8, 2015, from http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Theater/Hungarian_Theater.

NOTES: from The Advocate: America's Jewish Journal, Volume 38 pp 1140-1143, Feb 12, 1910 "A Yiddish Cafe-Chantant" by M. J. Landa in The Jewish World "The Galician ghetto t night...is sombre,staid, dreary & deadly serious. The people are tired & have little heart for amusement.... "At Lemberg there is a 'permanent' Jewish theatre but I decided in favor of a 'Zydowska Kabaretu' -- Yiddish cabaret. A Jewish cafe-chantant was a novelty not to be missed. I was attracted by the photographs in the window of the restaurant & by the program, some of the items which I reproduce: Marsch Uwertura......kapelmistra Walc.....L. Losticky Pan L. Rosentela.......humorysta Pna Irma Bellage.....subretka ..... Pepi Littmann........artystka

"I had annexed sufficient of the language to be able to gather that, after the opening march, there would be an overture by the conductor, & then a waltz. 'Humorysta,' 'subretka,' & the rest translated themselves.... The 'dyrektor,' who it turned out was also the 'komik'— & the least funny — was too eager to attend to the pleasant duty of taking the money at the door & also to the selling of programs to waste much time bout stage management during the first part of the program. He waited until the room behind the restaurant was packed to its utmost — or until his stock of programs was sold — before he snapped his fingers to the 'stage' at the other end, The artists then sorted themselves out from the tiny curtained alcove which was their dressing room onto the small platform...

"The audience was most un-Galician. It was recruited from the 'German' section. If I had any doubt on this point, it wss dispelled by the almost frantic applause which greeted a patriotic song eulogizing Franz Josef. There was only one round-hatted, ringletted individual in the room. He sipped coffee pensively from a glass & looked with dubious amusement at the singers of the broadest songs....The amount of food consumed at tht cafe-chantant was the funniest thing of all to me.... About the sketch. It was not Galician, which is to the credit of Galicia. It was American....It dealt with American life & the Yiddish was interspersed with Americanisms which probably I alone in the audience understood. Some of the lines would not have passed the English dramatic censor, but they were received with great hilarity.... Until the sketch, I was bored rather than interested in the entertainment. I have heard better artists in Yiddish music halls in London. One song at least I had heard rendered more eloquently in England. But the duettists, who had obviously been to America were clever — artists both, & she a rare comedienne, Pepi Littman by name.

"She was the 'star' of the program, & her appearance as a single turn was heralded by a jubilant chorus from the alcove. The moment she stepped on the stage, dressed as a Galician youth, with skull cap & ringlets, the whole atmosphere of the room was different. It was dominated by a personality. Her voice revealed itself in a manner which startled me.

'Frankly, I do not think I have heard a female comic singer with a voice of greater power & possibility. I preferred it to the cultured voice of the lady in a black evening dress who crooned operatic airs with ease & effect, & afterward wheedled members of the audience into buying her portrait postcards. Pepi Littmnn's voice is a rich, clear mezzo of operatic fullness & breadth & there are moments when it is quite thrilling. At others, again, it sounds almost harsh — this when she is engaged in repartee with her audience. She banters & expostulates with her hearers, always good humoredly & seems to tke as much delight in her singing & in her patter as they do. She is the incarnation of the joyous spirit of the Jew, with moments of pathos & sentiment. Listening to her singing of "Shabbos After Table" & "Kol Yisrael Chaverim,' & also an amusing ditty about the Messiah coming in an automobile, I forgot that I was in Galicia—forgot the horrible depressing poverty with which I had been surrounded for some days.... "Pepi is an actress & she can give point to her lines, using her voice at times in a way that reminded me of Marie Tempest....She would prove a draw in London. "I told her so in a brief conversation after the performance. She has been to America with her husband but not to England. Looking back on my Galician tour, she stands out in my memory as responsible for the only moments when I did not feel oppressed by the hopeless economic condition & apathy everywhere I turned. And she herself is Roumanian. That makes her remarkable buoyancy of spirit more wonderful still."

From Rothstein, R. A. (2011, February 18). Songs and Songwriters. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Retrieved December 8, 2015, from http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Songs_and_Songwriters. "Another transitional figure was Shloyme Prizament (1889–1973), who early in his career wrote songs for the last of the Broder Singers (including Pepi Litman [1874–1930], who was characterized as “a Jewish chanteuse in Hasidic trousers”), later collected and arranged songs from other surviving Broder Singers. He also acted, directed, and wrote plays and wrote song music and lyrics. Among Prizament’s songs were “Lomir beyde davenen fun eyn makhzer” (Let’s Both Pray from One [Holiday] Prayer Book [listen to a recording]), written for Litman, and “Bin ikh mir a klezmerl” (I’m a Little Musician)...... The Yiddish cabarets and revue theaters of interwar Poland, known as kleynkunst, were the source for other popular songs. Among the best-known venues were Azazel and Sambatyon in Warsaw, Ararat in Łódź (and later in Warsaw), and the puppet theater Khad-gadye in Łódź, but there were also similar places in Vilna, Kraków, Lwów, Grodno, and other, smaller cities. We know the names of performers, composers, lyricists, and writers whose work was featured at the Polish revues and cabarets, and titles of some of their programs, but their music is less well documented."

From Halász, T. (2010, October 27). Theater: Hungarian Theater. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Retrieved December 8, 2015, from http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Theater/Hungarian_Theater.

"For historical reasons, Yiddish theater did not develop in Hungary as it did in Romania, Russia, Poland, or Ukraine. During the nineteenth century, most Jews adopted first German and then the Hungarian language and culture as their own. Nevertheless, old forms of Yiddish theater such as the purim-shpil were performed in some traditional communities until the Holocaust, and some Yiddish dramatic works have surfaced too, primarily in Transylvania, a territory that was annexed to Romania in 1920, and Subcarpathian Rus’, which was annexed to Czechoslovakia in 1920 and is currently part of Ukraine...... Yiddish theater was rarely staged in Hungary. The only venue where such plays were performed regularly was the Wertheimer Nightclub, known as the “jargon music hall,” on Népszínház Street in Budapest. Between 1886 and 1912, director Lajos Wertheimer staged Yiddish farces and musical comedies that invoked the tradition of the Broder Singers. One star of this theater was Pepi Littmann (ca. 1874–1930); guest troupes from Galicia and Russia performed as well."

From Steinlauf, M. C. (2010, October 27). Theater: Yiddish Theater. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Retrieved December 8, 2015, from http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Theater/Yiddish_Theater. "But in 1883 tsarist authorities began to restrict the staging of Yiddish plays. This was probably done less for ideological reasons, as long believed, than because police authorities were simply inconvenienced by the new theater and applied the long-standing Russian legal tradition of forbidding whatever was not specifically permitted. Over the following two decades, as Yiddish actors and directors emigrated from Eastern Europe along with their audiences, London, Paris, and above all New York became centers of the new theater.

"Yet Yiddish theater survived in Eastern Europe. Traveling companies continued to perform the repertoire of Goldfadn and his American epigones in Romania and Galicia, where restrictions were less severe than in the Russian Empire. Yiddish companies were performing in Kraków by 1887. In Lwów in 1889, Yankev Ber Gimpel (1840–1906), a veteran choral singer in the Polish municipal theater, founded an institution unique in Eastern Europe: a permanent theater that managed to perform a Yiddish repertoire continuously until World War II. But even in Russia, Yiddish companies continued to perform, bribing local officials and playing in a Germanized Yiddish, a language, that is, that could pass for German in order to satisfy the authorities yet still be understood by Jewish audiences..... This was a theater that attracted mass Jewish audiences, noisy and demonstrative. Mixtures of comedy, farce, and melodrama, performances invariably included singing and dancing. Stage directors were unknown and scripts were irrelevant to the semiliterate performers. The action, on primitive stages with simple props and backdrops, was constructed around the leading actor or actress. This Yiddish popular theater, about which we still know very little, has been subsumed under the term shund (trash) and disparaged by critics and historians for nearly a century. Yet the poet Itsik Manger described this theater as follows: “Without theater-studies, without acting academies, they played. . . . They played ‘by heart,’ and it was good, better than good. It was play for the sake of play, theater for the sake of theater. They ignored the ‘texts,’ mocked the ‘authors.’ Instinctively they felt that they were free, and in their freedom overturned all the stupidities of the ‘authors.’ They improvised freely on the stage and the improvisations were filled with grace” (Manger, 1968, p. 13)......

"Amid the Russian Revolution of 1905 to 1906, a new era dawned for Yiddish theater and Jewish culture as a whole. Russian restrictions on Yiddish performances were gradually relaxed and the Yiddish daily press was legalized. A modern mass Jewish culture with its capital in Warsaw sprang into being virtually overnight. By 1906 there were five Yiddish dailies in Warsaw with a circulation of a hundred thousand; circulation doubled by the end of the decade. Suddenly one could find not only news of the world in Yiddish, but the serialized works of favorite writers as well as Yiddish theater schedules and reviews. Yiddish companies flocked to Warsaw and began to perform at five different locations including one theater (Muranover/Ermitazh) built especially for that purpose. In Łódź in 1905, Yitskhok Zandberg (1871–1915) established a theater where Yiddish companies performed continuously until 1914. Cities such as Vilna, Białystok, and Lublin began to enjoy regularly scheduled theater; smaller towns were visited by traveling companies.

"Newspaper readers and theater-goers, traditional and secular, rich and poor, began to constitute a new kind of community. They found it increasingly natural to think of themselves, using the discourse of modern nationality, as dos yidishe folk (the Jewish people or nation). The Jewish intelligentsia, many of whom had sought hitherto to have Jews assimilate into Polish or Russian culture, increasingly “returned to the people.” Spearheading this movement was the writer, activist, and culture hero Y. L. Peretz. The new Jewish culture, proclaimed Peretz, must represent the Jewish people’s highest aesthetic and moral aspirations. But when Peretz and his disciples visited the Yiddish theater, they were aghast. What they saw bore no resemblance to European theater art. Many of the theaters, moreover, appeared to have had connections to the Jewish underworld; pimps and their women were a common sight in the front rows. Peretz declared war on this theater; “Ayngezunken zol es vern!” (May the earth swallow it up!) he raged. Peretz and his followers applied the term shund, already in use as a designation for popular literature, to this theater, and preached the creation of a new theater that would be “literary,” “artistic,” and “refined.” Two of Peretz’s followers, Noyekh Prilutski (Noah Pryłucki) and A. Mukdoyni, became the first Yiddish theater critics in Poland. Peretz also began to write for the theater, but existing theater companies could not handle his greatest creations, Di goldene keyt (The Golden Chain) and Bay nakht afn altn mark (Night at the Old Marketplace), which were first staged only a decade after his death...... A second difference between Yiddish and non-Jewish theater was the nature of the core audience. In contrast to other European theaters, whose audience was drawn from the middle and upper classes, the mainstay of Yiddish theater in Poland continued to be the Jewish working class. This audience, along with conspicuous representatives of the Jewish underworld and the “slumming” Jewish intelligentsia, swarmed to the popular theaters. In 1931, for example, at a time when Warsaw’s only Yiddish dramatic company had disbanded, five theaters were staging a popular repertoire."

From the LEKSIKON FUN YIDISHN TEATER, Vol II, by Zalmen Zyberczveig & Jacob Mestel et al. Pepi Litman [Peshe Kahane] [born c. 1874 -- died 13 Sept 1930] Born about 1874 in Tarnopol, Eastern Galitsye, to poor parents. In her youth worked as a maid in the home of future actor Max Badin's parents. Having a beautiful voice, she got involved with the Brodersingers, appeared with them in pubs & inns, & wandered with them across Galitsye & Romania until she met the director Yenkl Litman, whom she married in Tshernopol. Litman learned various songs & rhymes, with which she "took the audience by storm." In a short time she became a household name among the public and reached the top of the wandering Yiddish vaudeville troupes. Litman often appeared in German resorts, where she expressed herself with the rhyming couplets "Yizmekhu Moshe" from "Dem Rebns Havdule," which she interpreted in an original way, full of double entendre. When she sang her couplets, both Jews & non-Jews used to sing along. She also became very popular with non-Yiddish audiences in Hungary in "Di Peptsia." Shortly before the [First] World War, Litman came to Warsaw & appeared in Julius Adler's adaptation of the operetta "Itzikl Vil Khasene Hobn" [according to the Odessa Mascot, "Der Kales Kholem."]. With this she truly took the local theatre-going public by storm. Due to the outbreak of war, she travelled to Russia. During the World War she performed in Odessa, where she was a favorite of the Yiddish masses & also popular in local literary circles. She was often met as a guest in the homes of David Frishman & Mendele Moykher Sforim, who gladly had her for her songs. 1917—Litman performed in Iasi Romania, & in the same year returned to Odessa, where she appeared in large theatres. After the Bolshevik revolution she continued to play in repertory theatre, though this was eventually banned. 1928—Litman returned to Poland, travelled on to Vienna, then played Karlsbad, Marienbad, returned to Poland, & then back to Vienna. There, in great poverty, having become ill, she was laid up for some time in the Rothschild Hospital, where she died on the 13th of September, 1930. Her burial was arranged by the Vienna Yiddish Artist's Union, & the Kehilla donated her cemetery plot. Dr. M. Veykher describes her thus: Pepi Litman was not a "shoyshpilerin." She rarely appeared in a theatre, & when she did play on the great stage, it was an exception. Her accustomed domain was not the theatre, not the hall or wine garden, not "the boards" but "the planks." Dressed as a Khosid, in a big fur hat above curly peyes around her round, full feminine face, in a wide unbuttoned coat with short trousers, white socks & pumps, with her hands twirling her peyes, she would burst from behind the curtains singing; & instantly, like lightning, set aflame the audience, both on the floor & in the balconies—as choirboys & merchants, tailors & doctors, maids & madames caught on to her melodies & sang along with her. Pepi Litman had a masculine voice, deep & hoarse, but anyone who once heard her "Yismekhu" could never forget it. Pepi Litman was no "shoshpilerin," she never had the legitimacy of a professional union, & "never hit the books" but in the Yiddish theatre she had more power than any two modern professional troupes put together. She drew from the same well of folk-humor & folk-feeling that Goldfaden & Grodner took from. She had a theatrical temperament, an actor's blood, & a Yiddish fervor.

Sh. Hokhberg describes her thus: Pepi Litman, with her lusty acting & especially with her folk-inspired singing, striding the stage in men's trousers with a Galitsian Khasidic fur hat, almost always evoked a sense of homey recognition in a Yiddish audience. Despite her lack of education, in company she gave the impression of an educated woman, since she spoke several languages well. Pepi Litman, aside from the environment of the artist's life, was religiously inclined, as shown by her observance of blessing the candles on Friday nights, avoiding non-kosher foods, & upholding the religious customs which were expected of a Jewish woman. According to Jacob Mestel, who knew Litman personally & often met with her wandering vaudeville troupe, Litman was almost the only Yiddish-character "chansonette in Khasidic trousers." In sketches, her short, chubby figure appeared plump, even clumsy. But when she entered the stage as a "Khosid," every nerve blazed; her deep, slightly 'covered' alto was as caressing as a tender cello; & with her "charming vulgarity" she lit the crowd on fire. In fact it was Litman, & not her husband, who led her vaudeville troupe. She was also the first to engage foreign-language chansonettes in her ensemble, based on local demand: in Galitsye & Bukovina—German & Polish; in Hungary—German & Hungarian, & so on; & with them she often played in "cut-up theatre pieces" ("Kestelakh").

Sh. E. from Jacob Mestel. Michal Veychart — "Teater in Drama," II, p. 41-43. A. Meyzels — Pepi Litman Geshtarben, "Lodzsgbll's" 17 Sept. 1930 Sh. Chayes — In Fremde Takrikhim," Inzer Tsayt," Kishenyev, 22 Sept, 1930 A. ____________ Tsytlin — Afn Keyver fun Pepi Litman, "Unzer Ekspres," Warsaw, 10 Oct. 1930 Sh. Dorfzon, "Barimte Yidishe Aktrise Pepi Litman iz Geshtarben in Vien," Forverts, n. i. [??], 24 Oct 1930

More sources: Y. Lifshits, “Badkhonim un letsim bay yidn,” in Arkhiv far der geshikhte fun yidishn teater un drame, ed. Jacob Shatzky, vol. 1, pp. 38–74 (Vilna and New York, 1930). Translated by ```