Born on 7 January 1894 in Zlatopol, Kiev Gubernia, Ukraine. Father -- employee of a land owner. Until age thirteen he learned in a cheder, and then with his family settled in Yelisavetgrad, where he became an errand boy in a manufacturing store.

Often attending the productions of the guest-starring troupe of Sam Adler, he became courier/messenger for the actors, and when the troupe traveled to act in Krivoy Rog, he left with them, without the knowledge of his parents, and became a stand-in, but after several days they sent him back home to his parents.

Here he organized an "amateur" circle, but soon (at the age of sixteen) he entered into Korik's Yiddish troupe, where he debuted as "David" in Lateiner's operetta "Yom hakupah", and as such  he went over from one troupe to another.

1915 -- mobilized in the Russian army, and in 1916 -- as a prisoner-of-war, together with actor Shneck, he guest-starred in Lublin in Hershkovitsh's troupe. 1919 -- returned from his imprisonment to the Ukraine, where he entered into a theatre as an actor and was a business director. 1922 -- organized in Odessa a large Yiddish operetta troupe with the participation of the actors Adolf Segal and Lyovke Brown. 1923 -- organized a Yiddish operetta troupe in Moscow, who then guest-starred across White Russia and Volga. 1926 -- actor and technical director for Clara Young. 1930 -- received from the folkombild the task of creating a Yiddish itinerant state theatre for the Ukraine ("Royter hamer"), from which he became appointed as its musical director.