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
 

Max Avramovitsh
(Mordechai Abramovitsh)

 

Born on 20 March 1856 in Hirsh, Rumania. About his family, it is only known that his brother was a butcher, and we have him called Aaron Heker.

He arrived in America in 1885-6 as a coupletist and composer, and as he was performing then in Yiddish theatre as the actor Max Avramovitsh, A. had to enter his family name as Abramovitsh.

A. was (according to Yiddish actors' accounts) the best couplet singer on the Yiddish stage, and for a short time after his coming to America, he entered into German variety, from where he later went over to Yiddish theatre, when he began there to stage operettas and musical comedies. In 1895 A. was the star comic in the Rumanian Opera House in New York.

A composed music for tens of plays, which were performed at that time, such as: Lateiner's operetta "Joseph and his Brothers", "Ezra, the Eternal Jew", "Woman of Valor", "Daniel in the Lion's Den", "Ifs tur", "Kurkhs utsrus", and Rudolf Marx's "The Bowery Tramp", to Israel Weinblatt's "Nakhman Zlatopoler" or "Father and Son", and to Jacob Terr's "Amnon and Tamar" or "The Happy Shepherd".

A. also composed the text and the music for very many songs and couplets, which had been song alone, and which were

 

throughout the year very popular among the broadest masses.

A part of those songs were published in the collection "Di idishe bine" (New York 1897, 2nd part).

A. also issued a booklet, "My theatre magazine, one tale of foolish luck and his whole, miserable life biography composed of 237 names of theatre shtik, his Yiddish theatre existence from 1877 to 1895."

On 19 July 1896, A. passed away in New York.


M. E. from Israel Tabatshnikov, F. Veynblat, Leon Blank and Moshe Shtarkman.

  • B. Gorin -- "History of Yiddish Theatre", Vol. II, p. 158.

  • Khanan Y. Minikes -- "Di idishe bine", New York, 1897 (Moshe Zeifert's "Theatre History").

  • Khanan Y. Minikes -- "Di idishe bine", New York, 1897 (Moshe Avramovitsh [Necrology from] N. S.).

  • Bessie Thomashefsky -- "Meyn lebens-geshikhte", New York, 1916, p. 157.


 

 

 

 


 

Home       |       Site Map       |      Exhibitions      |      About the Museum       |       Education      |      Contact Us       |       Links


Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 1, page 39.
 

Copyright © Museum of Family History.  All rights reserved.