Kushner's imaginative retelling of the classic mystical legend, The Dybbuk, by S. Ansky, the noted Russian and Yiddish-language folklorist, novelist and dramatist. Ansky formed an expedition which roamed throughout the Ukraine to preserve and collect Hasidic folktales. The Dybbuk was a product of that journey. Written before the outbreak of World War I, it wasn't produced until 1920, shortly after Ansky's death. It has been much-produced worldwide ever since.