Pesach Burstein

Pesach "Peishachke" Burstein (April 15, 1896 – April 6, 1986) was a Polish-born American comedian, singer, coupletist, and director who built a career spanning decades in Yiddish vaudeville and theater. His Broadway appearances ran from 1968 to 1969, culminating in the musical The Megilla of Itzik Manger. In 1986, he received the Itzik Manger Prize. His wife, Lillian Lux, and his son, Mike Burstyn, are also actors.

Burstein was born in Pułtusk, then part of Congress Poland within the Russian Empire, and acquired the nickname Pesach-ke because his birth fell on Passover. In 1901, his family relocated to Berdiansk, in present-day Ukraine, where his father operated a clothing store. As a teenager, Burstein left home to join a traveling Yiddish theatrical troupe. During World War I, Russian authorities arrested him on suspicion of espionage. His parents, who were beaten and killed in a robbery in Minsk while traveling back to Poland, died in 1921, and he never saw them again.

Boris Thomashefsky brought Burstein to the United States in 1923, and Columbia Records signed him to a twenty-year recording contract. He became well known for recording "Odessa Mama" and a Yiddish-language version of "Sonny Boy." His Columbia recording of the latter was made on the label's Green Label ethnic series, with a studio orchestra — likely drawn from the National Theater pit orchestra — conducted by Joseph Rumshinsky. Thomashefsky also sponsored Burstein's troupe to perform in the Yiddish Theater District on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Burstein was recognized as an accomplished stage whistler and served as actor-director of the family production A Khasene in Shtetl (A Wedding in the Village).

He married Lillian Lux, who was twenty-two years his junior. In 1939, the couple was touring Poland when a member of the diplomatic corps advised them to suspend performances due to growing unrest; they departed for the United States just days before Germany invaded. Burstein and Lux had twins, Michael and Susan, born in 1945. When the twins reached the age of seven, they began performing in The Komediant, A Khasene in Shtetl, and other Yiddish-language productions around the world, billed as the Four Bursteins, with the children appearing under the stage names Motele and Zisele. Susan did not continue in the acting profession, while Michael pursued a career as an actor under the professional name Mike Burstyn. The family also performed at resorts in Sullivan County, New York, on the circuit known as the Borscht Belt. Burstein additionally opened his own theater, the Hopkinson, in Brooklyn, and toured extensively through Eastern Europe prior to World War II.

The troupe earned critical acclaim in Israel and on Broadway for their production of Itzik Manger's Megille Lider, which became the longest-running Yiddish production in Israeli history before reaching Broadway as The Megilla of Itzik Manger, where Burstein performed from 1968 to 1969. Following the Holocaust, the sharp decline in Yiddish-speaking audiences led Burstein to seek out diaspora communities across South America, Eastern Europe, and Israel. He settled in Israel for a period but later departed due to a state tax imposed on Yiddish theater in connection with the promotion of the Hebrew language, as well as difficulties with local authorities.

In his later years, Burstein appeared in a small role in the film Shnei Kuni Leml, directed by Israel Becker and starring his son. On the centennial of his birth, director Arnon Goldfinger made a documentary about the Burstein family's lives and careers titled The Komediant, a title referencing both Burstein's profession and one of his productions. Burstein co-authored an autobiography with his wife, written in Yiddish under the title Geshpilt a Lebn (1980) and later translated into English as What a Life!

Burstein died on April 6, 1986, a few hours before the start of Passover — the holiday for which he had been named at birth — and nine days short of his ninetieth birthday. He was interred in the Yiddish Theater section, Block 67, of Mount Hebron Cemetery.