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Eddy Portnoy

Eddy Portnoy is YIVO’s academic adviser and director of exhibitions, as well as the author of Bad Rabbi and Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press (Stanford University Press 2017). For nearly a century, YIVO has pioneered new forms of Jewish scholarship, research, education, and cultural expression. The YIVO Archives contains more than 23 million original items, and YIVO’s Library has over 400,000 volumes—the single largest resource for such study in the world.

Stories from this author

Three of Yosl Cutler’s surviving puppets: two Jewish characters and one Russian. These were constructed circa 1933. (Photo courtesy of the Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)

The Life and Death of a Yiddish Puppet Theater

Puppets weren’t a common form of entertainment in Jewish culture.