Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin

Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin , 1853-1909, American writer of Yiddish plays, b. Russia. He was for some years a teacher and a newspaper writer in St. Petersburg, Odessa, and elsewhere. In 1880 he founded the Bible Brotherhood, a reform movement of Judaism. After the movement was suppressed, he left Russia in 1891 for the United States. In New York City he found the Yiddish stage in need of good plays, and for the rest of his life he wrote (more than 70), translated, and adapted plays in the vernacular. Among the best of these were Siberia ; God, Man, and the Devil ; The Jewish King Lear ; The Jewish Sappho ; and The Kreutzer Sonata (an English translation was produced in 1907). His collected plays were published (1910) in Yiddish in New York.

Gordin, Jacob (1853–1909), Jewish dramatist, born in the Ukraine, who in 1891 emigrated to New York and was drawn into the orbit of the newly founded Yiddish theatre there. He wrote in all about 80 plays, of which The Jewish King Lear (1892), Mirele Efros (1898), which portrays a feminine counterpart of Shakespeare's Lear, and God, Man and Devil (1900), based to some extent on Goethe's Faust, are the best known. Like most of his contemporaries, Gordin took much of his material from non-Jewish plays, giving them Jewish characters against a Jewish background, setting his face against improvisation and insisting on adherence to the written text. In its simplicity, seriousness, and characterization, his work marks a great advance on what had gone before. He was one of the directors of Goldfaden's drama school in New York, and towards the end of his life fought against the ‘star’ system, which he foresaw would be a danger to the theatre.

Gordin, Jacob [Michailovitch] (1853–1909), playwright. Born in Russia, the son of a well‐to‐do merchant, he was given a good education but soon came into conflict with growing Russian anti‐Semitism, so he immigrated to America in 1891 to help found a socialistic farming commune. When it failed Gordin began to write plays to support his large family. His first play, Siberia (1891), was a success, followed by his most popular Yiddish theatre offerings The Jewish King Lear (1892); Mirele Efros (1898); God, Man and Devil (1900); and The Kreutzer Sonata (1902). In all he wrote at least thirty‐five plays, and possibly many more, since he often employed pen names. Gordin eschewed the particularly Jewish stories, especially the sentimental and comic ones that had been the mainstay of Yiddish theatres. He wanted to depict Jewish life in terms of larger and more universal themes. He also rebelled against the freewheeling ways of contemporary Yiddish actors, insisting they follow his dialogue precisely and wear clothes proper to the time and characters of his plays. His seriousness of purpose is generally said to have initiated the Golden Age of Yiddish‐American theatre.