Yiddishpiel Theatre, in collaboration with Rimon School and the National Authority for Yiddish Culture, is proud to present:

The Paper Brigade | די פאפירענע בריגאדע

The extraordinary story of the members of the Paper Brigade—poets, writers, and intellectuals from the Vilna Ghetto, who were ordered by the Nazis to sort Jewish cultural treasures in preparation for their destruction, and chose to risk their lives to save them.

At the center are Abraham Sutzkever, Shmerke Kaczerginski, and their friends—a group that understood that the struggle for books, songs, and manuscripts was a struggle for memory and for the very existence of Jewish culture.

The play returns to the moments when, in an impossible reality, some of the songs most closely associated with Vilna and the ghetto were written and came into being—“Beneath the Radiance of the Stars,” “Ponary,” “Friling,” and “Do Not Say This Is My Final Way”—and to the people behind the words.

A new musical play connecting the story of the members of the Paper Brigade with a young generation of singers and creators, graduates of the Rimon School of Music, who give the songs of the period and Yiddish poetry new life through original and contemporary compositions, under the musical direction of Ohad Hitman.

They risked their lives to save the words. Now their words return to the stage.

Musical direction: Ohad Hitman

The performance is in Hebrew; the songs are sung in Yiddish.