Jacob Adler

Common card · No. 420912

Jacob Pavlovich Adler (Yiddish: יעקבֿ פּאַװלאָװיטש אַדלער; born Yankev P. Adler; February 12, 1855 – March 31, 1926) was an American actor and star of Yiddish theater, first in Odessa, and later in London and in New York City's Yiddish Theater District. Nicknamed "haNesher haGadol" (Yiddish: הנשר הגדול,, a moniker also given to Maimonides, or "The Great Eagle", Adler translating to "eagle" in both Yiddish and German), he achieved his first theatrical success in Odessa. After Yiddish theater was banned in Russia in 1883, his career flourished in London, and in 1889 he settled in New York City. There, Adler started a company of his own, ushering in a new, more serious Yiddish theater, most notably by recruiting the Yiddish theater's first realistic playwright, Jacob Gordin. Adler's triumph in the title role of Gordin's Der Yiddisher King Lear (The Jewish King Lear), set in 19th-century Russia, and his portrayal of Shakespeare's Shylock would form the core of the stage and celebrity persona...

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