Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin

Who was Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin?

Jacob Michailovitch Gordin was a Russian-born American playwright active in the early years of Yiddish theater. He is known for introducing realism and naturalism into Yiddish theater.

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature characterizes him as "the acknowledged reformer of the Yiddish stage". At the time of his rise, professional Yiddish theater was still dominated by the spirit of the early plays of its founder, Abraham Goldfaden, which derived in no small measure from Purim plays, often spectacles more than dramas; Goldfaden's later works were generally operettas on more serious subjects, perhaps edifying, but not naturalistic. Again quoting the Cambridge History, after his 1892 arrival in New York City, "Gordin took the Yiddish drama in America from the realm of the preposterous and put a living soul into it", bringing it up to the level of "realistic melodrama".