Born on 12 May 1865 in Vasilău, Rumania. His father was a merchant, who gave him a traditional education. Until the age of twelve he learned in a cheder, then he took up secular studies and later learned Hebrew, Russian, German and French with the teacher Hillel Goldenkorn. At the age of sixteen, he left his parents for Bucharest and there stayed for four years.

In 1885 H. immigrated to New York, where here he entered into the "Idisihe folks tseytung", and in about a year's time became a Hebrew teacher in Montreal, returning to New York where he dedicated himself to Yiddish journalism. H. published in the periodic Yiddish press light, popular articles, novels, philosophical papers and a whole range of translations and adaptations of the European literature, form which many, also original novels, were later published as separate books.

In 1895, when the Yiddish stage in America dominated during the "classical period", H. adapted into Yiddish Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" and "Macbeth", which were soon thereof staged. Being so drawn into the circle of the Yiddish theatre, H. took to writing the melodramatic sort and "lebensbilds", according to the tastes of the time. Thus they staged in 1899 his [adapted] plays: "dos kind fun der mdbr", or "Gefangen in gets fun vilder libe" (in 5 acts), "Feygele", or "Noyt brekht eyzn" (in 4 acts with a prologue), in 1900: "Der yidisher gemblre", or "Oyfun mzbkh fun libe", "Der .