Pepi Littman, Yiddish Drag King -- GLBT History
The image of early 20th century itinerant member of the Broder Singers (and Yiddish drag king) Pepi ‘Peshe Khane’ Littman (1874-1930) seen here as ‘the griner bucher’ (the inexperienced bachelor) calls to mind the bawdy Yiddish saying: es zol dir dunern in boykh un blitsn in di hoyzn (may you have thunder in your belly and, — more importantly perhaps — lightning in your pants.)
Electricity was precisely what Pepi brought to the then nascent field of Yiddish women performers: either in drag as a young hasidic man costumed in a long black satin coat, high peaked silk yarmulka, white knee-socks and breeches, or as a dandy bachelor, sumptuously filling out a handsomely tailored three piece suit. Pepi was a charming transgressive star delivering original Yiddish lyrics and drawing fans from literary circles, including those based around the “grandfather” of Yiddish literature, Mendele Moykher Sforim.
Her famous oylem habo ditty brought sex to the staid and the holy in the shtetl where a rabbi decides to ‘help’ a barren woman conceive — so he can enjoy a piece of the ‘world to come.’ With Littman’s help it becomes a term for, well, lightning in your pants.
And she wore the pants too, as leader of one of the most popular travelling Yiddish acting troupes in Eastern Europe performing in the wine cellars, inns, restaurants and all manner of populist dives of Austrian Galicia, Romania, Russia and even Vienna. Blessed with a husky low voice, Pepi’s repetoire covered topical events as well and was in turns melancholic, ribald and satirical.
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