Yiddish Theatre Star Mina Bern Dies

Obie Award winner Mina Bern, known as the Grande Dame of the Yiddish Theatre in New York, has died after a brief illness. While her precise age is not known, she is believed to have been in her late 90s.

Her last stage appearance was in May 2005, in Mina Bern: A Life on the Stage, A Personal Memoir Told in Song and Story for The National Yiddish Theatre – Folksbiene. Bern won an Obie Award in the company’s production of Sweet Dreams. Among her other Folksbiene credits are An American Family and the Yiddish world premiere of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Yentl. On Broadway, she appeared in Let’s Sing Yiddish and Those Were the Days.

Bern, who over the course of her career performed in five languages and appeared on four continents, also had a career in film. Her screen credits include Avalon, Crossing Delancey, Little Odessa, I’m Not Rappaport, Celebrity, It Could Happen to You, and Flawless.