(RNS) — From the stage, klezmer circus performer Eliana Pliskin Jacobs reflected on the name of her show, “Tshemodan,” meaning “Suitcase,” which she described as an “object so personal, carrying humanity’s most universal story.”
“Some stories are packed up into suitcases and only unpacked again after a very, very long time,” she said at a June 7 performance.
Tsirk Dobranotch, a musical circus ensemble, is presenting “Tshemodan,” a new collaboration by the Dobranotch band, Pliskin Jacobs and several other circus performers. Their show has been performed in several cities around Germany since May, featuring a medley of aerial acts, acrobatics, juggling and other circus arts, set to a live klezmer soundscape or traditional eastern European Jewish music.
Through the show, the performers also shine a light on the storied history of the Jewish circus, once packed away, now being unpacked again.
Jewish circuses, or troupes run by Jews and starring Jewish performers, had a long tradition, most prominently in Germany but also throughout Europe before the Holocaust. However, they were largely forgotten after World War II.
At the time, circuses were associated with Jews in a way that, for many, Hollywood is today. Stav Meishar, a scholar working on a book about Jewish circus families under Nazi Germany, told RNS it was likely linked to a history of Jews being excluded from many work opportunities in Europe.
Eliana Plisk …