Reizl Bozyk; Lifelong Star of Yiddish Theater

Reizl Bozyk, a respected actress in Yiddish theater since girlhood who matured into everybody’s favorite “Bubbe” when she made the English-language film “Crossing Delancey,” died Thursday.

The New York Times reported Saturday that the lifelong star of Yiddish-language stage productions in Poland, Argentina and New York, was 79. No cause of death was reported.

She began acting in Poland at the age of 5, fled the Nazis with her actor husband in 1939 and worked with him in South America before settling in New York City’s Lower East Side. The two worked together until Max Bozyk died in 1970.

In 1989, Reizl Bozyk played her first English-language stage role, appearing in the comedy “Social Security” in New Jersey. The following year she re-created on stage her film role of the grandmother (in Yiddish “Bubbe” or “Bubelah”), a well-intentioned meddler trying to find a husband for her granddaughter, played in the movie by Amy Irving.

One memorable scene in the 1988 film produced by Joan Micklin Silver, finds Mrs. Bozyk (pronounced Bow-zac) and several other older women practicing a hilarious if not especially menacing form of self-defense in a neighborhood class. Many critics wrote of their disappointment when she was not nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.