Ben Bonus

Ben Bonus (, November 9, 1920 – April 6, 1984) was a prominent American Yiddish theatre and Broadway actor and Yiddish language singer of the twentieth century. He and his wife Mina Bern were credited with keeping Yiddish theatre alive in United States during the 1960s and 1970s.

Biography Early life Bonus was born as Baruch Bonus on November 9, 1920, in Horodenka, Stanisławów Voivodeship, Poland, which had until the end of the First World War been part of Galicia, Austria-Hungary. His parents were Meier Bonus and Sheyne Reyzl "Rosa" Katz. His father was a baker who later became a fruit seller. During this time he learned to sing with private lessons. His aunt operated a successful bedding business in the Bronx. Bonus's parents and siblings were subsequently killed in the Holocaust in Horodenka.

Acting and musical career Not long after arriving in the United States, Bonus performed with the Goldfaden Theatre (funded by the International Worker's Order), and started to give concerts and sing Yiddish songs on the radio with Arnold Jaffe. He also met his first wife, Pepie Bonus (née Sonnenreich) in an acting class; they married in 1940 and were listed in the census of that year as residing in the Bronx with Pepie's two brothers Morris and Jack. That year his first son was born.

In 1942 he joined the Ben Ami troupe in Detroit (managed by Abraham Littman) and performed the works of Peretz Hirschbein, Henrik Ibsen and Henri Bernstein, and subsequently did a nine-month tour with the Folksbiene in Los Angeles.

He then returned to New York City and started acting in Vaudeville theatre there, including in Israel Rosenberg's theater on Clinton Street. They would end up performing and creating shows together for decades to come. Bonus would divorce his first wife Pepie in 1951 and remarry in 1952.

In 1952 he became co-manager of the National Yiddish Vaudeville Theatre in New York City with Henrietta Jacobson and Abraham Littman. The troupe continued to tour into the 1960s and a later version added the comedian Shmulik Goldstein and the pianist Paula Kadison. The group toured South America for a number of years as the Farband Players, visiting Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Venezuela. The following year he performed his act "Sing, Israel, Sing". In 1970 he performed "Light, Lively and Yiddish" on Broadway.

Bonus died unexpectedly on the street in Miami on April 6, 1984.

Discography Songs of Our People (Tikva Records T-23) (1950s?) Ben Bonus Sings Israeli Songs in Yiddish - Sing Israel Sing! (Tikva Records T-125) (1960s?) Sing main Folk (Famous Records FAM-1017) (1960s?) Once Upon A Town - Cavalcade of Life in the Shtetl (Famous Records FAM-1021) (1970s?) Let's Sing Yiddish (with Mina Bern, Shmulik Goldstein, Bernard Sauer, and Diane Cypkin) (Roulette Records SR 42022) Ben Bonus (with Mina Bern) (Londisc RL 130) (1975?)