About Sam Kestin

Start by read his entry in the Leksikon fun Yidishn Teater! Note that a good amount of the information in his entry was obtained from his memoirs.

Entry in the Yiddish World Almanac (1926)

Sam is today both the youngest and oldest Yiddish comedian on the stage. In his time, Mogulesko was the comedian among comedians, and Kestin is in his time the comedian among comedians. Kestin is a true Yiddish-American comedian. He was born in a European shtetl, but he was brought up in the true American-Yiddish atmosphere.

When Kestin is on the stage, he is a yidele1, a good Jew, a dear Jew with small stature, a yidele who leaps around the stage. He is nimble and animated, and you have no choice but to love him regardless of whether he is the schemer in the play, or the lover in the play. There are many comedians on the Yiddish stage who want to be like Kestin.

There are comedians who make you laugh by smearing themselves with soot, or by “doing without dirty pants”2, or by sticking out their tongue, or by prancing around the stage in their drawers. There are comedians who make you laugh by behaving like schlimazls, who gets hit or whose wife gives him a blue eye.

Kestin is not one of those comedians. Kestin makes you laugh simply because he is on the stage3. When he is up on the stage, you feel good with joy in your heart, and you don’t want him to ever leave the stage. He is so dear, so “cute”4.

A bad actor won’t help a good play with a good role. A good actor is pleasant to see even without a play and without a role. Kestin is that sort of talent, who will amuse you even without being in a play or performing in a role.

Kestin is a play unto himself. When you meet Kestin in private and spend an hour with him, you come away feeling like you have just seen an interesting play. He is a comedian who takes his comic roles seriously, but still with liveliness and joy. Kestin is a deeply serious mentsh who appreciates art and the Yiddish stage in general.

Sam Kestin is an institution in the Yiddish theater world.

In whichever city Kestin performs, he brings happiness to the lives of the Jewish youth. This season, Kestin plays in the People’s Theater5.

Songs

Listen to Sam sing! Click on the album images below to be directed to the song information and recording.

Shtetl Amerike _Shtetl Amerike_

Ikh bin sherif _Ikh bin sherif_

Kolombus’s medine _Kolombus's medine_

Ikh beink zurik kein New York _Ikh beink zurik kein New York_

Footnotes

  1. Affectionate term for a fellow Jew; literally “little Jew”↩︎

  2. an idiom?↩︎

  3. In other words, Kestin does not need to resort to gimmicks to get a laugh↩︎

  4. ’קיוט’↩︎

  5. The 1925/26 season↩︎