Born circa 1881 in a town near Galatz, Romania. His father was a smith, with whom he worked as a young student and thus was called "Koval", "Shmid".

Possessing a beautiful voice, he became a choir boy for Cantor Abraham Osher in Galatz (where there were among the other choir boys, the late Yiddish actor Fishel Kanapov, Lazar Rosenstein, David Baratz and the singer Yosel Bass).

In 1899, during the anti-Semitic tensions in Romania, he left with the pedestrian, immigrating to America, where he arrived in 1900. Here he entered into the former salon of Sholem Sheykeles, Dik and others on the East Side of New York, where he sang Yiddish songs. Later he became a vaudeville actor and yearlong acted in the small variety theatres, also with Louis Coopersmith across the province.

P. had for a short time acted in the Montreal troupe with Jacob Silbert at its head, and around 1913 he became engaged in Coopersmith's Cleveland "Royal Theatre", especially for the role of "Bar Kochba", "Absalom" (in "Shulamis"), and "Rabbi Joselman".

Not having any success as an actor, he learned Yiddish with Zeydl Rovner's father-in-law, Khasin, notes and chazzanut, and became a cantor.

According to Coopersmith, P.'s ambition was to become an opera singer.

He went away from the stage, and P., already being a cantor, only performed on 29 October 1922 as "Bar Kochba" (with Frieda Zibel as "Dinah") in Bronx's Prospect Theatre.