Ben Bonus

Ben Bonus (born Baruch Bonus, November 9, 1920, in Horodenka, Stanisławów Voivodeship, Poland; died April 6, 1984) was an American Yiddish theatre actor, Broadway performer, and Yiddish-language singer. Together with his second wife, Mina Bern, he was credited with keeping Yiddish theatre alive in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s.

Bonus was born into a family whose father, Meier Bonus, worked first as a baker and later as a fruit seller. His mother was Sheyne Reyzl "Rosa" Katz. He received his early education at a Cheder until age twelve, then attended the local Polish Gymnasium. During his school years he began performing in children's troupes and took private singing lessons. He also spent time in Lvov, singing in courtyards for money, and toured briefly with Shtshogol's troupe before returning to complete his studies. Records indicate he arrived in the United States in May 1938 aboard the Polish ship Piłsudski at age seventeen, traveling under the care of his aunt Mary Schachter, a U.S. citizen who operated a bedding business in the Bronx. His parents and siblings were subsequently killed in the Holocaust in Horodenka.

After arriving in the United States, Bonus performed with the Goldfaden Theatre, which was funded by the International Worker's Order, and began giving concerts and singing Yiddish songs on the radio with Arnold Jaffe. The actor Jacob Ben-Ami was an influence on him during this period, and Herman Yablokoff later wrote in his memoirs that he had served as a theatre teacher to Bonus and had been struck by his voice at a young age. Bonus met his first wife, Pepie Bonus (née Sonnenreich), in an acting class; they married in 1940 and resided in the Bronx with her brothers Morris and Jack. His first son was born that same year.

In 1942 Bonus joined the Ben Ami troupe in Detroit, managed by Abraham Littman, where he performed works by Peretz Hirschbein, Henrik Ibsen, and Henri Bernstein. He subsequently completed a nine-month tour with the Folksbiene in Los Angeles and also performed for the Jewish Workers' Committee and for the Histadrut. His second son, Jack Bonus, was born in 1945. In 1946 Bonus founded his own company, the Yiddish Mobile Theater, which toured more than seventy cities.

Returning to New York City, Bonus performed in Vaudeville theatre, including at Israel Rosenberg's theater on Clinton Street. He joined the Yiddish Actors' Union in 1949, the same year he met Mina Bern while the two performed together in a production called Shalom, Tel Aviv. Bonus divorced his first wife in 1951 and married Bern in 1952. That year he also became co-manager of the National Yiddish Vaudeville Theatre in New York City alongside Henrietta Jacobson and Abraham Littman.

In the late 1950s Bonus toured with an artist group funded by the Farband-Labor Zionist Order, a troupe that included Bern, Lily Lilliano, Leon Liebgold, and pianist S. Fershko. A later version of the group added comedian Shmulik Goldstein and pianist Paula Kadison. Traveling as the Farband Players, the troupe toured South America for a number of years, visiting Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Venezuela.

Bonus returned to performing regularly in New York City in 1964. In 1966 he established a Yiddish-language theater at the Borough Park Theater in Brooklyn. That same year he made his Broadway debut in Let's Sing Yiddish, a revue of songs by Itsik Manger, Mordecai Gebirtig, Morris Rosenfeld, and others, staged by Mina Bern. He subsequently appeared on Broadway in Sing Israel, Sing, and in 1970 performed in Light, Lively and Yiddish, completing a Broadway career that spanned from 1966 to 1970.

His recorded output included Songs of Our People on Tikva Records, Ben Bonus Sings Israeli Songs in Yiddish — Sing Israel Sing! on Tikva Records, Sing main Folk on Famous Records, Once Upon A Town — Cavalcade of Life in the Shtetl on Famous Records, and Let's Sing Yiddish on Roulette Records, the latter featuring Bern, Goldstein, Bernard Sauer, and Diane Cypkin. He also recorded an album with Bern on Londisc. Bonus died unexpectedly on the street in Miami on April 6, 1984.