haberman/yozef

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

Yozef Haberman

Born on 17 November 1897 in Warsaw, Poland. Father -- was in his youth a musician in an orchestra of an operetta troupe in Peterburg, then settled in Warsaw as a bookkeeper for a coal trasport house.

Until age nine he learned in a cheder, then completed a three-class municipal school, and attended for one year the evening courses of the school of commerce.

From childhood he performed with declamations in Yiddish and Polish during various "evenings", and in 1911 he participated in a Polish amateur production, then he joined in the children's troupe under the pseudonym of Breytman and acted in the posts of Warsaw, debuting as "Trafelik" in Gabel's "Tate-mames tsurus", then traveling with various "amateurs", such as the late actor Chone Levibrovska, the brothers Fenigshteyn, and entered into Zhitomirski's troupe as a prompter and child role-player.

H.'s parents wanted him however to leave the theatre, and sent him away to Peterburg as a tradesman, and after four months returned, and went with "amateurs" to Mlawa, where they acted for several weeks, then H. arranged an amateur production in Ilovo (German), and he traveled in 1913 to Argentina where he acted with the sister Siftser and created together with Morris Novikov a cooperative troupe for the province, which acted for about a year in Rosario (Argentina). When the troupe disbanded, H. went

around for two years across the Baron Hirsch colonies, where he arranged a literary evening, organized and staged with a dramatic union. On his initiative, there were built in certain places special theatre stages.

Returning to Buenos Aires, H. entered into the local troupe of Gutentag-Marienof with whom he also traveled across the province. In 1919 H. put together (together with L. Freiman) a troupe for Brazil, where they acted for a year. Then H. went back into the troupe of Gutentag-Marienhof and raveled with various troupes across South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay). 1922 H. with his wife was director of a Yiddish troupe in Chile and in he Argentinean province, then (together with Tsukerman) he directed with a troupe in Mendoza and managed in Buenos Aires the Salon Garibaldi Theatre. 1923 -- acted under the direction of Mark Arnstein and toured with him across the Jewish colonies. Then he came to the United States, and in 1924-5 acted in the Peoples Theatre in Buffalo, then from time to time in various theatres and then retired from the stage.

H. in 1916 acted in an Argentinean pantomime company, and in 1917 participated in Concordia (Argentina) in Spanish in a Spanish troupe.

In 1914 H., together with a group of youths edited and issued in Buenos Aires a weekly page "Dos likht".

Sh. E.

An erklerung fun artist yosef haberman, "Frayhayt", 8 April 1924.

Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 1, page 573.