Shimon Dzigan

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Shimon Dzigan and his wife Eva

Shimon Dzigan (Template:Langx, Template:Langx; 1905 – April 14, 1980) was a Polish Jewish comedian who worked primarily in Yiddish.

Biography

Dzigan was born in Łódź. His father was a soldier in the Imperial Russian Army. After the outbreak of World War I, Dzigan was apprenticed to a tailor to help the family make ends meet.

Career

Moishe Broderzon was impressed by Dzigan's improvised parodies in 1927, and invited Dzigan to join the Ararat literary kleynkunst (cabaret) theater that he was founding in Łódź with his friends. After Ararat was closed, Dzigan teamed up with Israel Shumacher, to form the most famous Yiddish comic duo "Dzigan and Shumacher". The duo drew comparisons to Abbott and Costello. According to one writer, "one of their most famous sketches, 'Einstein Weinstein', plays a lot like "Who's on First."

Dzigan and Shumacher made many films and stage shows in Poland and later in Israel. They founded their own cabaret company, the "Nowości Theater", in 1935 in Warsaw.

"The performances of Dzigan and Shumacher typically opened with skits based on items from daily newspapers. Their humor was aimed at antisemites and government functionaries, but also at themselves and their public. Routines based on domestic life would follow. Dzigan’s persona was that of a hyperactive, happy beggar, endlessly complaining about life as he darted about the stage with his signature red handkerchief hanging from his pocket. The bespectacled Shumacher, in fundamental contrast, was phlegmatic and restrained, glossing his Jewish troubles with subtle gestures of the shoulders and hands."

When Germany invaded Poland, Dzigan and Shumacher fled to Soviet-occupied Białystok, where they pulled their company back together and toured Minsk, Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Kharkov, and other Soviet localities. Shaul Berezovsky composed music for their troupe during this period.

Post war

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Shimon Dzigan memorial plaque in Tel Aviv

Both were incarcerated in Soviet gulag labor camps. The duo escaped and returned to Poland in 1946, and played themselves in the Yiddish language Polish film, Unzere kinder, the first (semi-)documentary about the Holocaust in Poland. They emigrated to Israel in 1950 to rebuild the brilliant artistic path they had forged in Europe and the United States. They performed on stage for thirty years, countless times across the globe. Their works were made into a historic Yiddish-language television program, broadcast in Israel in the 1970s, where they presented their own brand of humor. One bit on the show explained Albert Einstein's theory of relativity with one explaining to the other "If you have seven hairs in your soup, it's a lot. If you have seven hairs on your head, it's very little. That's relativity." The duo's TV and live performance was Yiddish satire that focused on their experience in the gulag, fleeing Europe, and their experience as new immigrants to Israel.

After Shumacher died, Dzigan went on performing until he died in Tel Aviv on April 14, 1980.

References

• Diego Rotman, The Yiddish Stage as a Temporary Home - Dzigan and Shumacher's Satirical Theater, De Gruyter 2021