Jonas Turkow

Jonas Turkow (Warsaw, 15 February 1898 – Tel Aviv, 4 February 1988) was an actor, stage manager, director and writer. He received the Itzik Manger Prize for his contributions to Yiddish letters.

He was the brother of the actor Zygmunt Turkow, the actor and writer Icchak Turkow, and the journalist Marek Turkow; and husband of the famous actress Diana Blumenfeld. In Warsaw, he performed in Dos artistishe vinkele (The artistic corner), which he organized with his brother Zygmunt, in 1916; and worked for a while under the direction of David Herman at the Elysium Theater. He also briefly performed in the German comedy theater of the brothers Herrnfeld, in Berlin. From 1917 to 1920 he played in Esther-Rukhl Kaminska's troupe; in 1921 he organized Dos baveglekhe dramatishe teater touring Poland and Galicia. Subsequently, he toured with Di yunge bine (The young stage). In 1926 he was hired to direct the cultural Yiddish theatre in Kraków. He received the first state subsidy given in Poland to any Yiddish theater. During the 1930s he was director for kleynkunst revi-teater in Kaunas.

He was imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto during the years 1940 to 1943, and after the ghetto uprising survived in hiding. After the war, as a member of the Central Jewish Committee of Poland, he investigated 18 cases of Jewish collaboration with German Gestapo.

In 1947 he emigrated to the United States and settled in New York City. There, beginning in 1958, he worked as the theater archivist at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. He moved to Israel in 1966. He died in Tel Aviv in 1988.