IDA KAMINSKA and her Warsaw Yiddish repertory theater began an eight-week visit here last night by giving New Yorkers a beautifully packaged work, "Mirele Efros," a drama that made its debut here 69 years ago.

Jacob Gordin's classic Jewish drama, the grandmother of all Jewish mother stories, perhaps, may not stand the test of time on all counts, but anyone with a shred of feeling for the Yiddish tradition cannot pass up a chance to go and see this production.

Miss Kaminska, in the title role, gave a glowing performance, underplayed with taste despite all the obvious opportunities to shriek and weep. As the aged and widowed mother whose stern stewardship of the family fortunes brought prosperity, she brings the proper hauteur, a touch of asperity and a way of ticking off inferiors with an acid comment.

Bu tit is more of a role than that. Mirele is also a Jewish mother, which means going all out for the kids, in this case two nebbish young men, one of them married to a termagant. It is this mother love that seduces Mirele into handing over the business, the money, the house.

Miss Kaminska never grovels, but with little mannerisms, many of them reminiscent of Paul Muni at his best, her hands tremble, her face contorts, and she radiates a sad smile of self-sacrifice. It is great acting.

The performance by the Jewish State Theater of Poland was altogether satisfying. The others in the cast are skillful, able, talented people. Marian Melman (Miss Kaminska's husband) made a persuasive Szalmen, Mirele's administrator. Michael Szwejlich and Ruth Kowalska make a fine comic, yet shrewd set of in-laws. As a matter of fact, there was no actor who could be faulted in any way.

Those who could not cope with Yiddish first-hand were able to catch the show through earphone translations.

Indeed, such a Yiddish production has not been mounted in New York since the late 1940s, when Maurice Schwartz bade farewell to Second Avenue. The visitors, who will intersperse Bertolt Brecht's "Mother Courage" in their schedule of performances, have the benefit of a determined organizer, Miss Kaminska, and, not least, of money.

The staging of the play was remarkably effective. It re-creates the feeling of Jewish life in Poland before the turn of the century. The sets are lavish; the costumes are period pieces in the best sense of the word. Nothing is unimportant -- the wonderful Jewish band come to play at the wedding, the bottle of "moshka" -- that's vodka -- on the table, the candles, the worn Bible from which Mirele reads an apt if dejected passage.

The play is done in traditional fashion. Indeed, it can hardly be done otherwise. To those who have been raised in Yiddish theater, it may seem unsophisticated and antediluvian. Yet to those who have not, it can be a journey back to a land they never knew except by hearsay.

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New York has a reservoir of capable Yiddish acting talent that does its best on a shoestring. It is growing older, yet, with encouragement that no segment of the Jewish community has given in quantity, it could create wonders, too. The visit of this government-supported company should inspire someone with thoughts of what local community do-it-yourself with sufficient funds might go. The people from Warsaw have arrived at a good time, one might say, in a "mazeldicke shu."