Biographical Information
Avi was born 'Avrum Ber', son of Mendl and Miriam Hoffman, in 1958 in The Bronx, NY. A child of Holocaust survivors, Avi was taught at an early age to appreciate the beauty and depth of the Jewish culture, literature, music and tradition. At age 10, he was featured in his first professional production - "Bronx Express" - at the Yiddish Folksbiene Theater on East Broadway. The New York Times review said: "Avremele Hoffman displays a sense of humor."
By 1969 his family had moved to Israel, and over the next 9 years Avi continued to perform in dozens of Hebrew and English plays, as well as two Israeli television series and a film - BLOOMFIELD - directed by and starring Richard Harris. In 1977, he returned to the US and got his BFA in Drama from the U. of Miami, graduating cum laude. He acted in regional theater in Florida, returning to NY in 1980, honing his craft by working for years in JCC's, Y's and senior citizen centers, performing for the elderly who couldn't make it to the theater.
As a stage actor he has performed in several Off-Broadway productions including his hit one man shows TOO JEWISH? & TOO JEWISH TWO!, both of which were highly acclaimed and for which he was named Performer of the Year '95 by NY Press Magazine, as well as receiving the prestigious Los Angeles OVATION award as Best Actor In a Musical 2001 . He was also nominated for both the NY Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards. He directed and performed in the Joseph Papp production of SONGS OF PARADISE at the NY Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, which was also featured at major festivals in Munich and Amsterdam. He was seen in the revival of Jerry Herman's MILK AND HONEY, the title role in THE RISE OF DAVID LEVINSKY (opposite Lawrence Luckinbill and Larry Kert), A RENDEZVOUS WITH GOD (his other one-man show), THE GOLDEN LAND and FINKEL'S FOLLIES with the Emmy award winning veteran actor Fyvush Finkel (Picket Fences).
On TV, Mr. Hoffman's Too Jewish? is currently being broadcast nationally on the PBS system. He was featured as 'Teddy Wayne' in the NBC series LAW AND ORDER. He starred in the motion picture - THE IMPORTED BRIDEGROOM, which received critical acclaim nationwide and was featured at the Montreal and Boston Film Festivals. Avi was also seen in the PBS documentary THEY CAME FOR GOOD: A HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN THE U.S.
Regionally, he recently directed and starred in the English revival of SONGS OF PARADISE at the Caldwell Theatre in Boca Raton, and was seen as TEVYE in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF at the Hollywood Playhouse (for which he received the Curtain Up award and was nominated for a Carbonell award - Best actor in a musical), in the world premiere of THE MARRANO (directed by Mark Bramble), and has been featured at the Penguin Repertory Co. in Stony Point, NY - where he performed in THE IMMIGRANT, ONLY THE SKY WAS BLUE and EPIC PROPORTIONS, under the direction of Joe Brancato. In Florida, he has been seen in PERFECT HARMONY - THE BARRY SISTERS STORY, Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST, AWAKE AND SING, FORTUNE AND MEN'S EYES, SLY FOX and DEAR WORLD.
In the music and recording industry, Avi was the lead singer of the 10 piece Don Byron Klezmer Orchestra (Elektra/Nonesuch). Playing the music of Mickey Katz, they have performed on Late Night with Conan O'Brian (NBC), at Avery Fisher Hall, Summerstage in Central Park, the Montreal, Quebec and JVC Jazz Festivals as well as 2 major European tours.
His other directorial credits include the Off-Broadway productions of BETWEEN A & B, SHEPHERD - a new musical at the Village Gate, JUNKYARD - a new musical at AMAS Musical Theater and BULLS AND BEARS at the Quaigh Theater. Regionally he has directed the world premiere of POKERFACES AND CASTANETS at the Odyssey Theater and KING OF SCHNORRERS at the Westwood Playhouse, both in Los Angeles, as well as LUCID MOMENTS, ANNE FRANK & ME, FORTUNE AND MENS EYES and THE REAL INSPECTOR HOUND in South Florida.
As the artistic director of 'The New Raft Theater Company' in New York, Avi was responsible for the development and production of several projects as well as dozens of staged readings at the Houseman Theater and the Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center. As the artistic director of the Joseph Papp Yiddish Theater, Avi promoted and preserved the rich heritage of the Yiddish language and culture through original theatrical productions.
He is very proud to be the founder and executive director of the not for profit, National Center for Jewish Cultural Arts, Inc., where he hopes to produce many high quality Jewish cultural events and programming.
Biographical Information
PETER LIBRACH is a first generation American of Polish Jewish descent. His parents both managed to escape the horrors of Nazi Europe and emigrate to the US, his mother prior to World War Two and his father after spending four years as a German POW. Peter grew up in the safety and security of New Rochelle, NY where he was suffused with the beauty and poetry of the Jewish religion and culture.
As an adult Peter first pursued a career as an actor with some success. During this time he appeared in a National Tour of GODSPELL as well as performing many other roles in stock, regional, and Off-Broadway theater.
In 1980 he founded Skyline Casting in New York and spent the next three years casting various theatrical, film, and television projects including the Broadway production of ANIMALS, the Off-Broadway production of SPEAKEASY, and the syndicated television series TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED.
After several years as a casting director Peter switched to the agency side where he worked for several major New York talent agencies including Don Buchwald and Associates and the Oppenheim-Christie Agency. Also during this period he toured the country with his TAKE TWO SEMINARS on how to break into Show Business.
In 1993 Peter moved with his family, including daughters Annie and Julie, to Coral Springs, Florida to run a Miami satellite of the nationally known television acting school TVI. In southern Florida Peter reaffirmed his commitment to Judaism working as a lay-cantor at the Coral Springs Jewish Center. He also rediscovered his acting roots appearing in regional productions of CABARET, FUNNY GIRL, THE SUNSHINE BOYS, THE SUBSTANCE OF FIRE, Danny Goggin’s MESHUGGAH-NUNS, and FIDDLER ON THE ROOF where he reconnected with Avi Hoffman, an old acquaintance from New York.
Seeing the importance of the NCJCA mission, Peter joined the organization as Associate Executive Director. The NCJCA gives Peter the unique opportunity to combine his varied experience in the entertainment industry with his love and commitment to Jewish Culture.
Through the NCJCA Peter now represents some fifty Jewish Cultural Artist continent wide. He has also served as Executive Producer for several NCJCA projects including the National PBS broadcast of AVI HOFFMAN’S TOO JEWISH? and the acclaimed theatrical musical SONGS OF PARADISE among many others.
Biographical Information
My
American passport says that I was born in Lodz,
Poland in 1936, three years before the outbreak
of the war, but I have no recollection of my
formative years. Somehow I shut out the years we
spent in a Russian Gulag in Siberia, where my
young father was imprisoned and my mother was at
her wit's end, struggling to survive with a young
child in 60 degree-below-zero weather, darkness
half the year, and no hope for the future.
Fortunately, my mother was not one to sit around
and mope. She mastered the art of persistent
pleading for mercy for two innocent souls who
wouldn't hurt a fly, let alone sabotage the
Communist system. Somehow, her pleas found a
friendly ear and we were released and sent back
to the slave labor-camp in the Urals. Once my
mother gained her freedom, she got as far as
writing to Stalin on a daily basis about our
plight, to the jeers and ridicule of all around
her. Nevertheless, they stopped laughing when an
answer arrived from the Kremlin, in the midst of
the raging war, granting us our own little room
that was confiscated and sealed off by the city
courts. We had to move in through the window.
The
war years were spent planning an escape from the
Soviet Union. I didn't understand any of it, but
as soon as the war was over, my mother, myself,
and Mr. Polishczuk, a friend of the family, who
was just released from a Russian prison, made our
way to the train station under the pretext that
we were taking a mentally disturbed friend of the
family to the bordertown of Lwow, in the Ukraine,
so he could meet up with his surviving sister. In
the event the border to Poland was open for
returning refugees, we were to send my father a
telegram stating that I was gravely ill, urging
him to come immediately and fetch us, as a signal
we could escape. We somehow made our escape,
reuniting with my father much later, smuggling
through the borders of Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Austria, and Germany. At the end of 1949, we
finally arrived in the U.S. I was 12, and had
little formal schooling behind me - the war years
saw to that. I entered Junior high school and was
completely lost.
The
American teachers were ill-equipped to handle war
children, dumping all of us together in the back
of the classroom, refusing to teach us. But I was
lucky. A neighbor's daughter invited me to come
along with her to the Yiddish afternoon school,
and once the Yiddish teachers got hold of me,
they didn't let go until I became what they
predicted I would become, a Yiddish teacher.
Statement
of Motivation
I
graduated from the Jewish Teachers Seminary of
New York in 1957, winning many literary awards,
and my teaching career took off. From 1965 to
1969, I wrote a number of children's books for
the Yiddish school system, illustrated by the
well-known Jewish artist Tsirl Waletsky,
published by the Congress for Jewish Culture.
Since then, I have taught Yiddish and Jewish
culture both in the U.S. and Israel, where I, my
husband Mendl and my son Avi (today quite a name
on the Jewish/English and Hebrew stage) settled
from 1969 to 1979.
Once
in Israel, I worked on the first hour-long
Yiddish Television Special with the comedian
Shimon Dzigan, popular Israeli singer Chava
Alberstein and several Israeli screen and stage
stars. For seven years I taught Israeli children
Yiddish, gave four weekly Yiddish courses at The
People's University of Tel Aviv.
After
our return to the U.S. from Israel, I resumed my
education at the University of Miami, (1979-1981),
majoring in Judaic Studies and earning my
Bachelor of Arts degree (Cum Laude) with the
highest scholastic achievements.
Back
in New York, I was invited to do a radio program
on WEVD, transmitting a weekly hour-long program
called "For the Love of Yiddish." The
themes I covered were: language, folklore,
folktales, Itzik Manger's biblical poetry set to
music, Moishe Nadir's wit and wisdom, Jewish
women in Jewish history, Jewish food in song and
stories, hassidic and misnagdic tales. I worked
with a dedicated group of writers, artists and
musicians.
I
did my graduate work at Columbia University from
1981-1983, and once again resumed my teaching
career, giving classes at SUNY New Paltz. That
same year, the editor of the Jewish Forward
invited me to write a column for the Yiddish
paper. I accepted it with great enthusiasm,
having written to this day over 800 articles,
among them: feature stories, interviews,
vignettes, and humorous feuilletons. My articles
are reprinted in Yiddish publications all over
the world.
As
a journalist, I met up with Joseph Papp, producer/director
of the N.Y. Shakespeare Festival, and began a
long working association. Both of us shared a
love for Yiddish, and he had a dream of
presenting Shakespeare in Yiddish at the Public
Theater. I began translating excerpts from Romeo
and Juliet, Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice,
Joe Papp was enchanted. He invited me to work
with him on the annual YIVO benefit, with
Hollywood and Broadway stars. I translated songs
from "Sweet Charity," and excerpts from
Neil Simon's plays for Ann Ranking, Tony Randall,
Jack Klugman, Phyllis Newman, Lynn Redgrave and
Mandy Patinkin, among others, coaching and
helping them with the translation and
pronunciation. This led to the creation of the
Joseph Papp Yiddish Theater, in which I served as
its Executive Director. In 1989, Joe Papp
produced my musical play "Songs of Paradise"
at the N. Y. Shakespeare Festival, which was
presented eight times a week, for almost a year.
Later it was moved to the Astor Theater and
finally toured European Jewish Festivals. (For
the rest of the plays that I have written, please
see enclosed C. V.)
In
1990 I wrote and co-authored with Joseph Papp and
Rena Borow the article on Yiddish Theater for the
Encyclopedia Americana. Joe Papp was preparing to
direct my play "The Sacrifice", which
dealt with the creative forces and spiritual
resistance in the Vilna ghetto. But in October of
1991, Joe Papp passed away.
Teaching
Yiddish language, literature, culture, traditions,
customs, rituals, holidays, songs, folklore, and
drama to hundreds of Jewish and non-Jewish
students at Columbia University as well as at
Oxford University, where I spent many summers,
was something that gave me a great source of
inspiration, an impetus to be creative, and
unbounded joy. The connecting link, of course,
was always the great love for the Jewish people,
their power of survival, their resistance to
adversity and above all, a developed sensibility
for humanity.
Three
years ago my students organized on campus at
Columbia, a replica of a Jewish "shtetl"
wedding. It was such a success that they decided
to recreate a Jewish event every year on their
own time. I encourage, assist and am there for
them whenever they need me. Some of our graduate
students at Columbia are now filling Yiddish
teaching positions at various universities and
Jewish community centers. It is also worthwhile
to mention that the majority of my students at
Columbia are orthodox.
Because
of the lack of curricular material for Yiddish
courses in the United States, as well as
throughout the world, wherever Yiddish is offered,
I have researched, collected, developed, adapted
and wrote several text-books for each level of
Yiddish language study. The curricular material
focuses primarily on the cultural aspect of
Judaism: Jewish holidays, traditions and customs
long forgotten, old and contemporary Yiddish
literature, folklore, folktales, legends, humor,
wit, drama, the Holocaust, and the State of
Israel.
Statement
of Purpose
Judaism
calls for education. It is the coming generation
which will determine the character of our Jewish
survival. Jewish education means reawakening
Jewish self-conciousness, Jewish awareness,
taking an active part in Jewish destiny -
filtered through Jewish beliefs, forms, values,
attitudes and a framework of reference. Not an
easy task for a Jewish educator. In order to
accomplish some of it, one must be involved in
Jewish life and creativity. Jews are constantly
recreating themselves, for Judaism is a living
tradition with a unique history and a distinctive
outlook on life. There is no nation on this earth
that could survive two millenia all across
centuries, continents and civilizations without a
land, a political state, a military power, never
losing contact with their origins, and above all,
never losing their wit and wisdom, their creative
powers, their spiritual value system and a zest
for life. What greater aspirations for a Jewish
educator than to instill this pride of
unprecedented quality in her students. |
