The Dybbuk

The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds, is a play by the Russian-Jewish writer S. An-sky, written in Russian between 1913 and 1916 and first performed, in a Yiddish translation staged by the Vilna Troupe, on 9 December 1920 at the Elizeum Theater in Warsaw. Drawing on Jewish folklore surrounding the dybbuk, a malevolent spirit believed capable of possessing the living, the play centers on a young woman who becomes possessed by the ghost of her deceased beloved on the eve of her wedding to another man. A Hebrew adaptation prepared by the poet Hayim Nahman Bialik premiered at Moscow's Habima Theater in 1922, and the play went on to become a foundational work of both Yiddish and Hebrew theater, achieving lasting international recognition through numerous further translations, stagings and adaptations across other media.