Yankev
Libert
L. was born in 1874 in
Warsaw, Poland, to poor parents --small dealers. He
learned only for three years in cheders and already as a
child of ten he was given to a Yiddish printer. At the
same time he was a choir boy with a cantor, and (1885)
he participated in "[Knabn]-chorus" in Goldfaden's
troupe in Warsaw.
L. became very captured by
the theatre and copied a home the actors. Goldfaden
observed that and got him to act in roles adapted for
older adults, and L. went on to be employed with this
profession, and he spent his entire time in and about
the stage. In 1887 during the ban on Yiddish theatre, he
entered into work in a Polish printing shop, for which
the owner was an actor from the Polish government
theatre, and L. learned Polish through him and also
theatre technique.
At the age of seventeen he
became acquainted with Esther-Rukhl Halpern [later
Kaminska], and together with friends founded in
Warsaw a Yiddish dramatic circle, which had triggered
him to a greater disturbance with the Russian police.
In 1892, thanks to the
efforts of the Russian theatre director Olginska --
there came the permit to act in Warsaw in
"Yiddish-German", together with the Russian troupe, but
the troupe no longer existed, and in 1893, when it was
forbidden to act, even in "Yiddish-German", L. became
engaged to Avraham Fishzon, with whose troupe he
traveled with for eleven years across the cities and
towns of greater Russia, transferring contamination and
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of the Russian might and
hunger due to the frequent minor visits to certain
cities and [flotations=ekspluatatsye] by the
entrepreneurs.
In 1905 he came to
Warsaw and together with Esther-Rukhl Kaminska [shared=opgeteylt]
the drama for the operetta, and he acted with her
for a certain time together in Warsaw in the drama, and
then he went on a tour across the larger cities of
Russia. Later L. was one of the important forces of the
"United Troupe", where he acted in the main roles in the
Gordin-Libin-Kobrin repertoires, and he also
distinguished himself in the "ranks" in Ibsen's "Nora"
and "Schwartz" in Zudermann's "Heymat".
In 1911 he toured with the
dramatic troupe across the Volga, Siberia and other
parts of eastern Russia. In 192 he staged (together with
Peretz Sandler and H. Epelberg), in the Elizeum Theatre
in Warsaw, where there was staged for the first time
a European operetta in the Yiddish epoch.
In 1917 during the October
Revolution he traveled across the Ukraine and with help
founded the Yiddish State Theatre in Kiev. In 1920 he
acted with a collective in Kavkaz.
In 1930 he entered into the
Baveglecher State Theatre.
L. received from the
government [council=ratn] the title of "'fardinstfuler'
artist", and every year he was [premirt] with a sum of
gold, as well as with two months [tsurloyb].
Sh. E.
-
Dr. A. Mukdoni
-- Yakov libert, "Der shtrahl", Warsaw, N' 3,
1910.
-
Noah Prilutski --
"Yidish teater", Bialystok, 1921, pp. 7-11.
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Dr. A. Mukdoni
-- Zkhrunut fun a yidishn teater-kritiker,
"Archive", Vilna, 1930, pp. 362-368.
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