S. was born in 1874 in Ostrow, Poland, to [fshute] small-city Jews. He learned in a cheder, where he had manifested abilities in his Yiddish studies. At the age of eighteen he immigrated to America, where for the first years had a difficult [job=gehorevet] in a tailor's shop.

In 1902 S. was taken to the city [esteyt] and business training [country trade and the construction of buildings]. He was one of the builders of Jewish Brownsville, then S. had taken to the movie business and had an entire chain of movie houses.

In 1917 S. was associated with Yiddish theatre, acting as a co-manager in the People's Theatre, then in the Grand Theatre, and later, together with Louis Goldberg directed the plan to build a modern Yiddish theatre in New York; the Public Theatre that opened on 27 January 1927 in New York, on 4th Street and Second Avenue.

As to that theatre, financially it was a failure, Sh. lost a lot of money. His loss was very deep, and he took it to heart and began to become sick. Afterwards his lungs began to suffer, and after returning from Arizona, where he had been cured, he settled in Liberty, New York, where on 6 October 1931, he passed away and came to his eternal rest in Mount Sinai Cemetery in New York.