D. was born in Yekaterinoslav, Ukraine. Of the profession of a tinsmith, as an "amateur" he acted in local dramatic circles, then he became a chorus singer and his career as an actor began with Fishzon, where he had acted about  four years.

As an intelligent person it was difficult to fit in to the environment in which the Yiddish theatre had found itself in Russia in 1897, when D. came onto the Yiddish stage. The constant dissatisfaction and the [dirdufus] of the theatre, he wandered from city to city by foot with [aks] and often suffered from hunger, called upon D.'s health condition, and in 1905-6, when the Yiddish theatre in Russia had begun to freely develop, D. had entered and found his place in the repertoire of Gordin, Libin, Pinski, et al, and developed tuberculosis from the stage.

From then he temporarily attempted to return to acting, but without any means to a cure, he still [geshtert] in acting.

Since 1915 D. was found with his family in a village near Yekaterinoslav, where he spent his days far from the stage, forgetting his former friends-actors,and there at the beginning of 1918 he passed away.

B. Doktorov (Necrology), "Der idisher artist", Kharkov, 1,1918.