New Adaptation of Sholem Aleichem’s “Wandering Stars” Heads to the Stage

Sholem Aleichem’s famed Yiddish novel “Wandering Stars” is being brought to the stage in a new production at the Khan Theatre. The story follows Reizel and Leibel, two young people in a small town who fall in love with each other and with Yiddish theater after a traveling troupe arrives. They decide to run away with the actors and devote their lives to art, but a chain of accidents separates them on the day of escape and sends them in different directions.

For the next 20 years, the two wander the world, with he becoming a celebrated actor and she a singer, yet their paths never cross. They meet again only as older, famous artists in New York, in what the article describes as a mythic encounter between two passions. Through that moment, Sholem Aleichem asks about the price of fame, what happens when youthful ideals meet reality, and what Jewish artists must give up to reach for the sky.

The new adaptation was written by Richard Nelson at the request of director Yotam Gottlieb. Nelson is described as a Tony Award winning American playwright and a former resident playwright at the Royal Shakespeare Company. The production is being presented as a world premiere, an unusually large event for Israeli theater. The last Hebrew stage version of the novel was mounted at the Cameri Theatre in 1950, and another adaptation was staged at Yiddishpiel.

The production also reflects a renewed and youthful interest in Yiddish culture, which the article says was long excluded from Israeli discourse. It notes that 2026 marks 90 years since Sholem Aleichem’s death. The show is dedicated to the memory of Sasha Lysiansky, who began work on the project but died before rehearsals. The staging includes dance, video, and 10 actors, with some songs performed in the original Yiddish.