Dinah Shtettin

Who is Dinah Shtettin?

Dinah Shtettin was a prominent English-born Yiddish theater actress. She was the second wife of Jacob Adler, with whom she had a daughter, Celia; they divorced, and she married Siegmund Feinman. Contrary to the custom of the time, she and Adler remained friends even after their divorce.

The daughter of Polish Jews, Shtettin had a strict Orthodox Jewish upbringing in London. She began her theatrical career in the chorus of Israel Grodner's London troupe in the mid-1880s, eventually getting small parts, and joining Adler's troupe when the Grodners went to Paris. Adler, then a widower, quickly took a liking to her. At this time, he was already involved with Jenny Kaiser, whom he had become romantically involved with while his first wife, Sonya, was still alive, and by whom he had had a son.

Dinah Shtettin's father approved neither of theater nor of Adler, but did little to restrict his daughter's wishes. He stated, "Let it be a divorce tomorrow, but marriage it must be!" They were married in 1887, and he left with the troupe to travel to the United States. After a seven-month return to London, he once again journeyed to New York in 1889, and was shortly followed by Dinah, who divorced her husband when he eloped with Sara Heine two years later in 1891.