The author of The Dybbuk, S. Ansky (pseudonym of Solomon Aronovich Rappoport, 1863-1920), grew up not far from Vilna (today's Vilnius), in the mixed Polish-Lithuanian-Byelorussian-Jewish region of Russia that formed the heartland of Yiddish culture. Throughout his young manhood he was a determinedly secular socialist in Russia and Russian Poland, turning his back on his Jewish roots and the Yiddish language. In his forties, however, having traveled widely among the common people of the Western regions of the Russian Empire (and some in Western Europe), he turned back to Jewish culture. The Dybbuk, written and revised between 1912 and 1917, was first performed after Ansky’s death. It has survived to this day as perhaps the best-known play of the Yiddish theater – a much diminished but still active tradition.

The story is set in the kind of small, East European Jewish towns known as shtetls, mostly in Brinnits (or Brinitz) but partly also in Miropole (or Miropolye). The time is roughly the 1860s, the years of Ansky’s childhood. The characters are Hassidic Jews of a particularly pious kind, related to the followers of the Lubavitcher Rebbe of recent times; young men who could afford to do so were expected to pursue a religious education as far as their skills would take them, and men regarded as showing exceptional learning and spirituality were the true leaders of the community. The temptation existed among scholars to greater mysticism and even magic-working, associated with the writings known as the Kabbalah. The locales and costumes and music are as authentic as the filmmakers knew how to make them, though the action is of course concentrated and stylized in accordance with the needs of the drama. Because of the nature of the story one can hardly call the drama realistic, but it was meant to be evocative, resonant with the traditions of the Jewish people (as understood by the semi-secularized, semi-modernized author and filmmakers).

As a film, this is not on the level of the others we watch; it is frequently clumsy or obvious in its script, its cinematography, and even its acting. Only towards the end it does gain authentic dramatic force. We watch it as a film made by Polish Jews in 1937 for a wide audience of their fellow Polish Jews, about their common heritage – as a testimony to the times. It was extremely popular then, and is considered a classic of its kind.