Serḳele, oder, Falshn tsaṿoe 

Solomon Ettinger, 1803–1856

Serḳele, oder, Falshn tsaṿoe: a [...]‬shpil in 5 oyf tsihen (Serkele, or the Fake Will: A Play in 5 Acts)‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

Manuscript on blue paper

[Poland], ca. 1850

Solomon (Shloyme) Ettinger was a distinguished Yiddish playwright and poet who was the first to bring the spirit of Haskalah into the Yiddish theater repertoire. He deliberately chose Yiddish as his literary language, thus establishing a path for Haskalah literature in this language.

His iconic play Serkele, oder di falshe tsavoe was written in 1839 in the style of an 18th-century sentimental comedy, with much drama, many tears, and reconciliation at the end. Considered a masterpiece, it remained a performance staple throughout the heyday of the Yiddish theater in the 19th and 20th centuries and is still widely celebrated for its dynamic form and plot, and the sharpness of the language. However, the play was not published until after the author’s death.

The play is set in the bourgeois Jewish household of Moshe Dantsiger and his wife, Serkele, in Lemberg, then the capital of Galicia under the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the early 19th century. After Serkele’s brother disappears, she greedily takes possession of his assets instead of transferring them to her unsuspecting niece. When her brother unexpectedly returns, a chain of events unfolds, ultimately leading to reconciliation among the characters.

The image shown here depicts the beginning of the play, with a description of the setting for the first act and the initial monologue of Chaim, a servant. The manuscript is written on blueish, inexpensive paper commonly used for printing Jewish books in the first half of the 19th century. Some variations in the title compared with the published sources suggest that the manuscript was published before the actual printed editions of the play became available.