Sholem Asch

The first in a playwright series by White Goat Press, Sholem Asch: Underworld Trilogy includes three of Asch's Yiddish dramas – taking place in the world of the criminals and the literal underworld – that had successful and influential debuts on the Yiddish stage in the 1920s.

The first in a playwright series by White Goat Press, Sholem Asch: Underworld Trilogy includes three of Asch's Yiddish dramas – taking place in the world of the criminals and the literal underworld – that had successful and influential debuts on the Yiddish stage in the 1920s.

Sholem Asch could be thought of as Yiddish literature's first modern celebrity, almost a one-man global brand. The obscenity trial surrounding his play Got fun nekome (God of Vengeance), as well as its frank depiction of two women in love, inspired Paula Vogel's recent Broadway hit Indecent—but Asch wrote over twenty more plays exploring interfaith love, the Jewish underworld, Messianic dreams, and class and power in the Jewish world.