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
 

Margareta Schwartz


Born on 26 February 1858 in Bucharest, Romania. Father -- a furniture manufacturer. She learned in a school and studied in a conservatory. On Sundays she sang in a cloister chorus. Mogulesko heard her sing and recommended her to Goldfaden, who soon took her into his troupe, where she debuted in the vaudeville "Fir por portseleyene teler", "Di shvebelekh" et al. From Bucharest she went to act in Iasi and then to Russia.

 According to Bina Abramovich, Sh. had in 1881 acted with Naftali Goldfaden in Sorocco (Bessarabia) as "Shmenderik's wife"). She may then have already been thirty-five years old, and she may not have been born in 1858, but around 1846.

Sh. was a relative of Goldfaden, being married to Avraham Goldfaden's brother-in-law, Michel-Adolf Werbel ["Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre", pp. 731-732], and toured with Goldfaden's troupe across Russia. She remained then for a long time in Odessa, where she didn't act.

In 1888 she arrived in America, where she acted across the province (Philadelphia, in the "Academy" Theatre, in Pittsburgh), and in New York, then she traveled to Bucharest, where she acted for a year in Finkelstein's troupe with Segalesko and her sister Aneta Schwartz, later again in Odessa, where she didn't act, and in Bulgaria, where she acted again.

Returning to Odessa, she acted for several years with Sabsey, then with Fishzon in mother roles until 1912, when she returned to America, where she no longer acted.

On 13 February 1914 Sh. passed away in Philadelphia and was brought to her eternal rest at the Har Nebo Cemetery.
 

M. E. from her son, Dr. Jan M. Werbel, and from Bina Abramovich.

  • B. Gorin - "History of Yiddish Theatre", New York, 1923, Vol. I, pp. 199, 232.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 6, page 5761.
 

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