Born 10 April 1882 in Sekareny, Bessarabia. His father was an Orthodox tobacco merchant.

W. studied in a cheder and, for a short while, in a yeshiva. He sang with the cantor. When he was thirteen the family moved to America. Here he studied at night school and by day worked with fur coats. 

Soon he became a “theatre patriot” and co-founder of the Goldfaden Union and then the David Kessler Drama Society in which he also performed. In 1906, with professional actors, W. played “Meir” in Orzeszkowa’s “Meir ezofowicz”. Later he toured the province directed by Ivan Abramson and played with Feinman in Philadelphia. Because he refused to be a strikebreaker at the Peoples’ Theatre, he was accepted for a trial period at the actors union which had just been formed, and he ended up as member in fifteen executive [committees] and was at one time vice-president.

W. acted for eight years at Grand Street Theatre with Adler, then for five years with Thomashefsky at the People’s Theatre, eight years with Kessler playing the repertoire of Gordin, Kobrin and Libin, three years with Satz at the Irving Place Theatre, in 1927-28 with Anshel Schorr at the Liberty Theatre and in 1928-30 at the Rolland Theatre.

M. E.