Beyond the Pale - American Jewish Historical Society

4
Molly Picon
MrS. Clara piCoN (MollY’S MotHer), MollY piCoN, JaCoB kaliCH aND MollY’S SiSter HeleN
pHotoGrapHeD iN MollY aND JaCoB’S FirSt apartMeNt at 242 eaSt 19 tH St., 1925
pages from a
performing life:
the sCrapbooks
of molly piCon
tHrouGHout tHeir more tHAn 50
years together, Molly picon, the “Darling
of the Yiddish theater,” and her husband
and collaborator Jacob (Yonkel) kalich
kept scrapbooks brimming with clippings,
reviews and interviews, fan letters, programs,
telegrams, and other ephemera.
Spanning the years 1919 to 1967, primarily
in Yiddish and english, the scrapbooks
reveal picon’s best self: her love of Yiddish
theater and her audience, her tireless work
ethic, and her longevity as a performer.
Molly’s scrapbooks chronicle her prolific
career in real time and as she and Yankel
wanted to remember it.
Pages From a Performing Life, currently
on display at the Center for Jewish
History in New York, provides a glimpse
beyond Molly picon’s international career
and into the yiddishkeit of her abundant
life. the exhibit draws on the Molly picon
papers, which include 22 scrapbooks, at
the american Jewish Historical Society
as well as material from the collections of
the Yivo institute, a fellow partner at the
Center for Jewish History.
in these pages, we offer our readers a
small taste of the exhibit.