Lives in the Yiddish Theatre
SHORT BIOGRAPHIES OF THOSE INVOLVED IN THE Yiddish THEATRE
aS DESCRIBED IN zALMEN zYLBERCWEIG'S "lEKSIKON FUN YIDISHN TEATER"

1931-1969
 

Hersh Gershanovitsh

 

G. was born in 1883 in Lodz, Poland, to religious parents. he learned with religious teachers (melamedim), a long time with a rabbi, wrote in a holy tongue, but under the influence of the German and Yiddish literature he went away but in an other breath, and at the age of seventeen he became a bookkeeper. Working for three years with various firms, and not being pleased with his work, he wandered out to Germany, Belgium and France. there he became an ordinary [port]-worker, and after that he became acquainted with several Yiddish actors, came from England, [is it to them=shteyt er tsu ey tsu].

In 1905 he came back to Lodz, where he performed happily in Avraham Yitzhak Kaminski's troupe, in the beginning in episodic roles.

Since then he has acted in various specialties and in various troupes across Russia and Poland.

In wartime he acted most of the time in Lodz, where he was one of the founders of the local Yiddish Actor's Union, and also a short time as its chairman.

In 1924 he traveled to Antwerp and Paris, from there wandering off to Cuba, where he acted in Yiddish theatre and arranged a concert.  In 1926 he came to Canada, where he acted from time

 

to time with his family, traveling then with his own small troupe across America. In 1929-30 he was stage manager in Brooklyn's Hopkinson Theatre.

Specialty:: Character roles.


Sh. E.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 1, page 505.
 

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