Shifra Lerer

Who was Shifra Lerer?

Shifra Lerer was an Argentine-born American Yiddish theater actress based in New York City. Lerer appeared opposite every major Yiddish theater actor during her career, which lasted 90 years. She was also cast in film roles, including the 1997 Woody Allen film, Deconstructing Harry.

Her father, a manager at a soap factory, had immigrated to Argentina from the Russian Empire to escape anti-Semitism and poverty through the sponsorship of philanthropist and banker, Maurice de Hirsch. Lerer was born in the Santa Catalina colony in Argentina on August 30, 1915. Lerer was discovered in Buenos Aires by Yiddish theater legend, producer and actor Boris Thomashefsky, who was starring in the area, when she was just five or eight years old, at the recommendation of her sister. At ten she was participating in Yakov Botashanski's productions in a theater circle. When she was older, she studied at a Spanish-language drama school and performed for three years on the Argentinian stage.