A. was born on 3 October 1881 in Chernobyl, Ukraine, into the Twerski rabbinic family. His father was a teacher with graduates in the Rabbinut. He learned in cheders and Talner kloyz, and with his father. As such he didn't have a deep desire for his holy studies, and his father had him go to a tinsmith where he only learned for six days, and soon he went off to a bookbinder.

A friend, who together with him had learned in the kloyz, a [bel-mngn], attempted there to become a singer because he had a beautiful voice, and so he participated in an amateur production of "Shulamit" in Yekaterinoslav, where the parents had in the meantime moved to.

Two years later A. had acted often in Yiddish productions with "amateurs", until Yiddish theatre became forbidden, and he then participated in Spivakovski's Russian production of "Shulamit". The troupe in which he went into as a comic soon fell apart, and he then went over  into the Russian operetta troupe of Borisov, where he acted for six years under the name "Blumental". In  a half-year's time he learned in Bogrogov's dramatic school in Kharkov.

From the Russian troupe he entered into Zhitomirski's Yiddish troupe, which randomly put out a poster, stating that "Adler" would be coming for a guest appearance, and as such he came, not as Adler, though Adler was the name given (called by the actors "Vosyes Adler").