In the 1890s, professional Yiddish theatre was still a new and self-conscious form of art. Yiddish playwrights and actors were anxious to prove both themselves and their language. The Yiddish language, or zhargon (as it was commonly dubbed), was regarded by many as a language fit for housewives and itinerants but not for sophisticates, and certainly not for lofty theatre. Many feared that continued adherence to Yiddish would prevent new immigrants from becoming American and would stigmatize the rapidly growing American Jewish population. The Yiddish theatre that dominated the Lower East Side at the time did little to assuage these misgivings. The first generation of American Yiddish theatre was dominated by so-called shund (trash) theatre: melodramatic plots written by playwright hustlers, theatrical grandstanding by affected stars, and scripts rife with macaronic language and double-entendres. Even so, Yiddish theatre audiences of this generation could rival any for their sheer adoration of, if not their sophistication about, the stage. The notion of presenting Shakespeare in Yiddish seemed grotesque to much of high society, fantastic to Yiddish enthusiasts, and just plain strange to Yiddish theatre audiences, many of whom wondered who this Shekspir was. As Joel Berkowitz shows in this wonderful book, Shakespeare on the American Yiddish stage proved the value of Yiddish theatre, introduced Yiddish-speaking audiences to the Western canon, and introduced the American theatre world to its Yiddish counterpart. In these ways, Shakespeare served as a “cultural bridge” between new Jewish immigrants and the American culture into which they were assimilating.