About this period, Sholem Perlmutter wrote (in 1939):

"With Sholem Podzamce, as far as I remember, more than forty years ago, Chaim Bendel already had appeared then, as did Yonah Reissmann, Chone Stradler and his wife Neche, the Weisenfreunds (the parents of Paul Muni), Abraham Axelrad, Sam Ludwig, Mr. and Mrs. Desser, Jacob and Pepi Litman, Mordechai and Adela Schwartz, et al. ... The income of the folkssinger in that time was nothing honorable. At that time, there were many pubs in Lemberg, where the Jewish crowd would park, and there in those pubs were the "Broderzinger," who came with their "little songs." The Jewish artisans, the small-business men, the coachmen, used to come there after their hard work and spend an entire day there.  They would come to the bar of Adolf Lifshitz on Koylnplatz, or to the bar of Shvetzer, which then was founded in the worker's quarter on Zamarstinover, to have a glass of beer to capture the heart, and thereby listen to the singing of beautiful Yiddish songs. From time to time the same folk singers also used to perform in many, various other pubs and guest-houses.

In the night in which the "Broderzinger" were performing, everywhere, there hung in the front of the bar a special characteristic red lamp, on which there were inscribed the Yiddish letters, "Today singing here in the pub is a Yiddish folkssinger."

When they saw the red lamp, the crowd used to be very large to listen to the "Broderzinger."

In the pubs in which the "Broderzinger" used to perform, as soon as they entered, two large brass lighters on a large table drew their attention, which indicated that the stage, which had never been separated from the audience, began there.

On the side there was a corner where a white curtain was hung. This had taken the place of a "dressing room." There, in that corner, the "Broderzinger" changed their clothes. The "change of clothes" consisted in the fact that the jacket was turned on the left side. The folkssinger sang couplets and songs for the most part, which were composed by the Galician poet and folkssinger Velvel Zbarzher (Wolf Ehrenkrantz), Eliakum Zunser , Abraham Goldfaden. As for example, "Dos oyg," "Di eyzenban," "Dos neyntsente yorhundert," "Der alter tate," or all the songs of the badkhan Sh. Bernstein: "Der shabes mit der neshome isrh," "Sholem Aleichem," "Der nayer Kol mekadesh," or the songs of the badkhans Benjamin Zev Shtroys [sp] and M.N. Dreyfus, for which Sholom Podzamce used to sing with at that time, "Lshanah Habaah bYerushalayim (Next Year in Jerusalem)," "Der lustiker doles," "Al Tira Avdi Yaakov," "Chaim Shmuel dem Gabai'les," "Menukha v'Simcha," "El khet," "Der kurtser freytog," and many others.

The entry to the "Broderzinger" was free, and it cost nothing, but after each couplet or song, the singer used to go around with a plate among the public, and would collect ordinarily no more than two or three greitzer [sp] per person. A great privilege was the one who used to give exactly five greitzer. The "Broderzinger" used to be called "a good guest." (Years later, when women were found among the "Broderzinger," the woman used to go around with a plate, which had collected much more than the men).

The singers also used to receive from the pubs, for whom they used to perform, "gazhen" (wages), which ranged from a half to a whole guilder for an entire evening, and together with the other monies that  I have listed before, the folk singers used to make a living at that time. People even met folkssingers at that time who could afford their own golden watch with a brass chain.

Sholom Podzamce also played in Lemberg in Bombad's pub on the wide street, in Yoshe Hand's garden on Zholkover, and also in an entire series of other Yiddish bars in Lemberg. His "shlogers (hits)" in that time were "Der alter tate (The Old Father)," "Di bobe yakhne," "Der krokever," "Der shuster als rabbi (The Cobbler as Rabbi)," "Di mume drezyl mitn krumen gezl," "Der farlibter bokhur," and many others, whose composers were unknown.

The music to the songs used to be adjusted by the singers. They took what they could: a Hasidic melody [nigun], even the traditional nigun from the tefillah of the High Holy Days -- any melody. This evoked an understandable frustration by the religious and Hasidic Jews, who saw this as an insult to their holy nigunim."

[For details about the "Broderzinger," see the "Lexicon of Yiddish Theatre," Volume 1, pp. 216-236.]

From Galicia Podzamce again went to Hungary, where he acted in vaudeville [there it was called "variety"], and "pulled-together plays" ["kestelekh (delicious)"] -- shortened plays that were performed in an hour's time. From here he went to Vienna, together with Lukatsher, where they played "variety" in a tavern, then Podzamce played variety in Krakow and Lemberg [Galicia.]

"Sholom Podzamce -- Sholem Perlmutter writes further -- was a master in his way in those years, and as he was known as a popular Yiddish folkssinger, a certain Mandelkern in 1891 brought him to America, where he had in the course of three years played in the "Roumanian Opera House" on the Bowery, and also in the old "Grand Museum," on Grand Street (as well as across the province), but he could not adapt to the new circumstances at that time, and in 1893 he returned to Galicia.

Years later Sholom Podzamce used to play Yiddish theatre under the direction of Y.B. Gimpel in Lemberg, also also under the management of the now-deceased playwright Moshe Richter in the province. But when business in Lemberg became bad, Sholom Podzamce went off, across the towns and cities of Galicia, Hungary, Bukovina and Moldavia (Romania). There is no area, no place, or even a village with a larger Jewish settlement in the mentioned countries, that Sholom Podzamce should not have played there. When he arrived in a town with his troupe, he soon announced the dat when he will perform, and the role that he will play, and the whole town ran to see Yiddish theatre: The girls went wild and had a grat time; the happy young men of the town came, the Hasidic youths sneaked in secretly, at least to give a look at the evil wonder that was called "Yiddish theatre." ... People forgot for a while the grimness of everyday life, and after such a performance, darkness fell in the town. The Hasidic daughters and youths had the misfortune to sing and to tell their visitors the pretensions that it is driven -- as the pious Jews claim to be -- by debauchery. ... what such a performance of Sholom Podzamce left behind, it was the thing that in all the Jewish houses people started singing Yiddish songs. ... Sholom Podzamce made a name for himself with the Jewish masses, and in the villages where Yiddish theatre was unknown, and he had great success. He brought in a certain spiritual refreshment in the isolated Jewish masses. Thus, despite his banal plays, he fulfilled a cultural mission, and everywhere he prepared the ground for the later modern Yiddish theatre.

Sholom Podzamce, in the time of the (first) World War, went away to Vienna, where he alone received a concession for Yiddish theatre. In his Yiddish theatre (in Vienna, the "Hotel Stefanie"), many Yiddish performers found a home, where they had a place to lay their heads, and where their hunger was stilled. Under his management in Vienna, American stars also guest-starred, among them also was Molly Picon, Hymie Jacobson, Miriam Kressyn and many others."

According to Jacob Mestel [who began to act in Yiddish theatre in 1910 in Vienna under Podzamce's and Moritz Siegler's direction), Podzamce had a "singing-acting-society" concession in Vienna, already long before the First World War, and since then he constantly acted in partnership with Yona Reizman and Herman, Moshe and Saltshe Weinberg. Later Podzamce was a partner with Moritz Siegler's "Yudishe bine" in Vienna. Although Podzamce had staged hipshlekh "secular," he however was a religious person and had during the last years in Vienna led a respectable life, together with his wife Reizele, who was the actual creative director. Podzamce was an episodic role player of the old fashion and did not infrequently play women's roles ["Natasha" in Gordin's "Kreutzer Sonata"]. Podzamce also (under Mestel's direction) was attracted to the production of the Vienna "Fraye yidishe folks-bine" and participated (in 1924) in the film production of "Yizkor," with Maurice Schwartz and the "New York [Yiddish] Art Theatre troupe." He was a member of the "Abraham Goldfaden Union" in Lemberg, and of the Austrian (German) Bine-Farband.

On 11 March 1937 he, due to Hitler's entry into Vienna, cancelled the last production and saved himself by going to America, where he arrived in August 1939 in New York to his daughter, a sister-in-law of the deceased Yiddish theatre director Michael Sachs.

In America Podzamce did not perform; he only attended the Yiddish theatres, where he happened upon many of his former friends and students, and he passed away in New York on 24 January 1940.

M. E., and M. E. from Yehuda Bleich and Lazar Freed.

• Sholem Perlmutter -- Der "zayde" fun dem idishn teater in galitsye, gekumen fun vien als flikhtling keyn amerike, "Der tog," N. Y., 13 August 1939.

• Jacob Mestel -- "Undzer teater," New York, 1943, pp. 13, 14, 22, 23, 43, 46, 49, 51 and 53.