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The National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene is a professional theater company in New York City which produces both Yiddish plays and plays translated into Yiddish, in a theater equipped with simultaneous superscript translation into English. The company's leadership consists of artistic director Zalmen Mlotek, executive director Bryna Wasserman, associate artistic director Motl Didner, producing director Christopher Massimine. The notably distinguished Board is Chaired by Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, Principal at Bernstein Global Wealth Management and Vice Chaired by Feliks Frenkel, Principal at OTW Wealth Management.
Folksbiene was founded in 1915 on New York City’s Lower East Side, and is thought to be "New York’s oldest theater company, English or Yiddish, commercial or not." The era when it was founded is considered to be the height of Yiddish theater; at the time there were 15 Yiddish theatre companies in the Yiddish Theater District in New York and many more worldwide. Due to the destruction of European Jewry by the German Nazis, the Folksbiene is one of only five professional Yiddish theatre companies still in operation; also in New York City is the New Yiddish Rep, and the others are in Bucharest, Warsaw and Tel Aviv.
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