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
 

Lazarus (Eliezer) Monfried


M. was born in August 1885 in Shadova, Lithuania.

He received a general education and from the age of eight on he learned the play the fiddle, at first with a klezmer in the town and then in Shavel.

At age fifteen he came to Warsaw, where he studied violin and general music in the conservatory, under the influence of Dr. Yosef Luria, and Avraham Reyzen published songs in "Der Yud" and in "Epelberg's Yom-tov-bleter", in which he had around 1903 begun to publish on his own.

In 1901 he composed his first composition (text and music) for the song "Tsyuns fon", was active as a chorus conductor in the choral school "Shaari tsion", and for a singing association, which later transformed into "Hazamir".

After the outbreak of the Russian-Japanese War, he went away to his father in South Africa, where he took a [nont]: participating with the local Yiddish writers, corresponding also in the Yiddish press of Europe and North America.

In 1907, together with his parents, he came to America where he for a certain time often collaborated in the "Yidish tagenblat" and he also participated in other periodical publications with songs, stories, feuilletons and publicity articles.

In 1913 he published in New York "Di yidishe drama un familyen zhurnal, ersheynt monatlikh, published by the Frommer Publishing Company", edited by Eliezer Monfried [October 1913 -- January 1914, 32 pp., 16°], and in 1923 "Di idishe muzikalishe velt un teater-zhunral, a monatshrift far muziker, lehrer un shiler fun muzik, khznim, zinger, shoyshpiler un ale libhober fun musizk un drama, issued by the Jewish Federation of Music and Drama, edited by Lazarus Monfried" [New York, 1st volume -- March, 2nd volume -- August-September. 1923, 32 pp., journal format]. In the last journal M. published in [fortzetsungen] his four-act drama "In letsstn shturem".

M. also wrote a musical drama in three acts "Der gott fun muzik".

In the last years M. is mainly active as a director of a music school and as a fiddle pedagogue. He also has composed many compositions for fiddle (or violin), piano and singing and he has published in Yiddish methods for fidl (violin) playing.

  • Z. Reyzen -- "Lexicon of the Yiddish Literature", Vol. II, pp. 311-12.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 2, page 1225.
 

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