The Yiddish-American musical theater of the 1920s served to help Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe make meaning of their lives as strangers in this new land. Like most earlier and later newcomers to America, they faced homesickness, deprivation, and language difficulty. The Yiddish musical helped them come to terms with their environment by reminding them of the "old home" while highlighting the benefits of the New World. It confronted the past with the present and fused the folkloric songs,...