Born in 1886 in Meytse (Mozyr), Grodno Gubernia, Polish Lithuania, and was raised in Kalish, where his father, R' Noakh Lider, arrived there as city cantor. He learned Shemash and Puskim with the Kalish rabbi R' Shimon Hornstein, and at the same time general subjects with a private teacher. From childhood on he manifested musical qualities.

At the age of twelve, he wrote music (most of the time he adapted his father's compositions) for the operetta "Di royber-baron (The Robber Baron)", from an article eynvoyner Shmuel Rozenfeld. The operetta for a long time was performed in Kalish and in its nearby communities. Z. at that played the violin and conducted the orchestra.

1906-8 -- Z. participated as a chorus singer in Jacob Bleichhman's Berlin Yiddish troupe, for which he also wrote music for the staged operetta.

1909 -- completed Berlin's conservatory, and then received from the Peterburg conservatory the title "Fraye kinstler", later becoming a cantor in Warsaw, in Rostov-on-Don, and was for three years Premier in the Rostov imperial opera, and for four years was a professor of singing and music theory in the Rostov gev. imperial conservatory. Later he again became cantor and concertist.