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23 March to 15 July 2012 Jewish Migrants from Eastern Europe in the 1920s

Kaftan Cabaret

Entrance to Jewish cabaret
The Kaftan Cabaret at Jägerstrasse 18, ca. 1930/31 © AKG

According to the March 9, 1931 issue of the BZ am Mittag, theatergoers could find “one of the best and surely one of the strangest cabarets in Berlin” between the Gendarmenmarkt and Friedrichstrasse in the district of Mitte – in the very same place where today large shopping centers attract droves of people.

The Yiddish Kaftan Cabaret was founded in the spring of 1930 by the married couple Maxim Sakaschansky (1886–1952) and Ruth Klinger (1906–1989), both of whom were actors. In autumn that year it moved to Jägerstrasse 18.

A literary cabaret, it attracted a mixed audience, including Russian and Polish emigrants from the nearby Scheunenviertel neighborhood and Eastern European Jews who had been living in Berlin for a longer time.

View of street with new building
Friedrichstrasse/Jägerstrasse, July 2012 © Jewish Museum Berlin, photo: Gelia Eisert

Ruth Klinger discussing the cabaret

»The Kaftan Cabaret will celebrate its opening on February 14, 1930. [...] The audience is made up of three groups: the petty bourgeois families of Eastern European Jews from Grenadierstrasse and the surrounding area … They fill the sections with the cheap seats and come in large numbers on Saturday and Sunday. [...] The more expensive seats are bought by the Jews who have lived in Berlin for a longer time, who started out small, are already living in the western section of the city and have strong connections to their roots. [...] The third group are the Zionists who want to make up for what they are lacking and familiarize themselves with the language, traditions and folk art of their brethren from the East. One group doesn’t come: the members of the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith. They see themselves as Germans and have no ties to Eastern European Jews whatsoever.«

Ruth Klinger discussing the cabaret, cited from Die Frau im Kaftan (Ludger Heid, 1992)

Play as an mp3 file (German).

Ruth Klinger discussing the cabaret, cited from Die Frau im Kaftan (Ludger Heid, 1992)

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