Goldfaden’s Shulamis and the Modern Performance of Mishnaic Ritual

Avrom Goldfaden's play Shulamis (c. 1880) is an innovative attempt to develop a theatrical vocabulary based on rabbinic depictions of Temple-time rituals, in order to create a spectacle that revived the ancient Land of Israel for audiences in Eastern Europe. It reactivates mishnaic ritual narratives through a set of spatial dualities - urban vs rural, homeland vs diaspora, and the actual space of the theatre versus the fictional space onstage. These dualities stem from inherent tensions within the poetics of performance in mishnaic ritual narratives, while at the same time situate Shulamis at the cusp of spatial transformations that informed modern Jewish culture, particularly with the advent of Zionism. Shulamis later influenced the agrarian ceremonies of the kibbutz movement devised by Matityahu Shelem. This trajectory, as well as the profound differences between Goldfaden and Shelem, shed important light on the modern responses to the Mishnah's performative potential.