Bessie Thomashefsky (1873 – July 6, 1962), born Briche Baumfeld-Kaufman, was a Russian-born Jewish American singer, actress and comedian, a star in Yiddish theater beginning in the 1890s.

In 1888, Bessie ran away from home to join the Thomashefsky Players,[1] and was given an ingenue role starring in Abraham Goldfaden’s Shulamith, which was performed at the Boston Music Hall.

[3] Their first son, Harry, started acting at the age of 13 in the play The Pintele Yid (A Little Spark of Jewishness, 1909), became a director of the Federal Theater's Yiddish Theater Project and directed his father in films The Jewish King Lear (1934) and The Bar Mitzvah Boy (1935).

Boris Thomashefsky began and carried on a long-term affair with Yiddish actress Regina Zuckerberg (1888-1964).

[5] Regina began her artistic career at the Jewish Theatre of Lemberg, Galicia (Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Lviv, Ukraine) and had in September 1911 immigrated to the United States with her husband, actor Sigmund Zuckerberg.

Her memoir, Mayn lebens geshikhte (My life’s history: The joys and tribulations of a Yiddish star actress), as told to A. Tennenholz, was published in 1915.

Bessie lived in California until her death in 1962,[1] aged 89, and was buried with her husband in the Yiddish theater section of the Mount Hebron Cemetery, New York.

[7] In 2011, Michael Tilson Thomas hosted a concert stage show celebrating his grandparents and the music of American Yiddish theatre which aired in 2012 on the PBS series Great Performances.