Joseph Lateiner (1853 – 1935) was a playwright in the early years of

Yiddish theater Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revu ...

, first in

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and later in

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, where he was a co-founder in 1903 with Sophia Karp of the Grand Theater, New York's first purpose-built

Yiddish language Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

theater building. Born in Iaşi, Romania, Lateiner got his start writing for theater in Iaşi around the start of 1878, when Israel Grodner, having left

Abraham Goldfaden Abraham Goldfaden (Yiddish: אַבֿרהם גאָלדפֿאַדען; born Avrum Goldnfoden; 24 July 1840 – 9 January 1908), also known as Avram Goldfaden, was a Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in the languages Yid ...

's Bucharest company, needed a playwright. He added some topical material to a comic German story '' Nathan Schlemiehl'', and came up with a play ''Die Tzwei Schmil Schmelkes'' (''The Two Schmil Schmelkes''). He translated and "Yiddishized" plays from Romanian and German; his more than 80 plays included '' Mishke and Moshke: Europeans in America (or The Greenhorns), "

Satan in the Garden of Eden Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehood. ...

", and " The Jewish Heart"''.Nahma Sandrow, ''Vagabond Stars, a world history of Yiddish Theater'', pp. 106-107 By showing that Goldfaden was not the only person who could write a successful play in

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

, he opened the floodgates for other Yiddish playwrights.

References

* Adler, Jacob, ''A Life on the Stage: A Memoir'', translated and with commentary by

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, New York, 1999, . 77 (commentary). 1853 births 1935 deaths Yiddish theatre Jewish Romanian writers Romanian emigrants to the United States Writers from Iași Jewish dramatists and playwrights {{Romania-writer-stub