28 December 21st, 1946
This article is not available from the National Library of Israel. The article was obtained from the New York Public Library’s microfiche archives.
A character portrait of the famous “Professor” Horowitz, the “king” of shund1 on the stage.
I couldn’t get much joy playing in the People’s Theater, because in those days, Bessie Thomashefsky didn’t play women’s roles - only young and nimble young men who dominated the whole stage and were usually of the mischievous and wanton sort…
And so it always turned out that, when an opportunity for such a role - which was an exact fit for me - came up, it was only given to me when Boris Thomashefsky was fighting with Bessie over something and was on bad terms with her. And I really didn’t want them to fight. Just the opposite, I was good friends with both of them - indeed I was related to them2 - and in my heart I always wished that they would live in peace and grow old together in happiness and honor. But the fact that Bessie Thomashefsky acted in pants3 really interfered with my career. Thomashefsky couldn’t give me the opportunities that he should have, and even when Edelstein tried to intervene on my behalf, it never helped.
Only when Adler appeared in plays from his repertoire did I get a chance to perform in a role that I actually wanted. But even though I was pleased that the Nesher Hagadol took me under his wing and put in a good word for me, it wasn’t enough.
I then realized that, for all my longing and dreams of being in New York, playing with the “great bears”4 was not at all what I had imagined, and my heart grew heavy and I started looking for a way to get out of this unpleasant situation.
What I would do, I myself didn’t know. I thought, if I only could, I would go to a different theater for the next season. But who knows if any other theater would actually hire me? After all, I was still somewhat of a newcomer in New York and not as well known as the other actors, so who would be eager to hire me? Who would pick me up? And even if someone did want me, would they pay me as much as they did in the People’s Theater?
But just then when I was feeling so aggrieved in the People’s Theater, having to endure the misfortune of Bessie Thomashefsky acting in pants, something happened which I did not expect at all.
In those days, a Yiddish troupe played in the Windsor Theater on the Bowery, where the Manhattan Bridge now stands, and the managers of the troupe were Moishe Heine-Chaimovich and the “Professor” Moishe Horowitz, the “king” of all sorts of historical and non-historical operettas on the Yiddish stage.
Legends circulated all around New York about the “Professor” Moishe Horowitz, who signed his name as Moishe Ish Halevy, and there was nothing he could do about all these legends being written about him.
Nobody really knew where he got the title “Professor” from. Even though he himself assured everyone that, back in a university in Bucharest, he had once been a professor of geography, nobody believed really him. It was customary in theater circles that, when you called him “Professor,” you said it in a way that it sounded like a joke.
He was also called “the meshumed”5, and it was said that indeed years ago, when he was considered a great expert and learned shkhite6 to become a shoykhet7, he suddenly joined the Haskalah8, learned German, and wrote in a German newspaper. And just as he wrote in German, he also wrote in Romanian and Hebrew. He was sure that, in his newfound refinement, he would of course climb high on the social ladder.
He came from Galicia. He was born in Stanislav, and he loved to boast that his family traced its lineage to Shelah HaKoydesh. And it was known that when he was a young 20-something, or maybe 30, one fine morning he suddenly converted and become a missionary, all to be able to pay off some debts9. But after a little time had passed and he had put away a little money, he returned to Judaism. He caused such a spectacle when this happened, and he began to call himself “Moishe Ish Horowitz Halevy”.
People also used to say that when he became a Jew again in Bucharest, he convened a group of coachmen, and he went with them to a pub and got them a couple liters of wine and “made their hearts merry with wine”10 and gave a sermon, quoting verses from the Toire and the Gemore11, and he wove in some story about Terakh12 and Avrohom Avinu13, about how someone who used to worship idols became a Jew who now worships Rebbeinu Shel Oylem, and so therefore they should welcome him with opens arms back into the people of Israel.
Afterwards, in Romania, the “Professor” suddenly took an interest in Yiddish theater. This was around the same time that Abraham Goldfaden laid the foundations of the Yiddish stage. He competed with Goldfaden, churning out new plays as quickly as you baked matzos. Overnight, he could whip up a whole new play. He would quickly grab up new plays - a goyishe play from somewhere or another - as soon as he saw it, and before you even expected it, he would “Yiddish-ify” it so that even the original author didn’t recognize it…
And if he didn’t have a goyishe play on hand when he needed it, he would just take a chapter of Jewish history and quickly turn it into a play - and it worked just as well. He was really an interesting character, the “Professor.”
When he came to America and became a Yiddish theater director, he behaved like a magnate. He spent money like water and lived very comfortably, as a magnate does. He always dressed so that all eyes were on him when he went down the street, always wearing the finest clock with the most beautiful top hat. His clothes were fresh off the needle and made of the best fabric, and to make an impression, he rode around in his own carriage with two fine, plump horses, and his coachman who drove the carriage was always dressed in a uniform with golden buttons.
Generally speaking, in those days this business with carriages was very in vogue in the Yiddish theater world. Adler drove around in a carriage with two fine horses. Boris Thomashefsky too drove around in a carriage with two plump horses. The only one of the big theater managers who didn’t have his own carriage and coachman with golden buttons was Yosl Edelstein. And if you asked why he too didn’t buy himself a carriage, he answered, in his own peculiar way:
– Eh, who needs it! May they all crash, those fools… No good, I tell you, will come from traveling in a carriage… None at all! You can die from one of those things… May they all crash… I’m fine just being a manager….14
Edelstein never envied anyone who lived lavishly. His thought it was nothing more than an attempt to blow smoke in people’s faces. And the worst of them all was the “Professor.”
That was the kind of person he was, Moishe Ish Horowitz Halevy, who was known in those times as the “king” of shund on the Yiddish stage in America. And just as he was never offended by those who called him “Professor” in a sarcastic tone, he also wasn’t offended when people called him “meshumed.”
Many times, I heard Jacob Gordin say to him:
– Hey, you…meshumed!…
And the “Professor” took it as quite a normal thing, nothing to make a whole fuss over, and he’d usually say back to Gordin -
– Nu, what do you want to ask me, goy?
That’s what he called Gordin - goy! It irritated him that he was learned but Gordin wasn’t.
– People should know their Toire - he would say - Oi, people should know it!… It comes in handy.
Others too in the Yiddish theater world called the “Professor” meshumed. He was used to it, so it didn’t bother him.
It never occurred to me to go to the Windsor Theater and ask to anyone, let alone the “Professor” himself, if they wanted to hire me for the next season. But it turned out that I didn’t have to go to him - someone from the Windsor Theater had already come to me. And it happened by chance, as I later found out.
The “Professor”’s daughter had seen me perform once in the People’s Theater, and she loved my acting so much that she immediately when to her father and told him that they needed an actor exactly like me in the Windsor Theater.
He always relied his daughter’s expertise; she used to go around to all the other theaters and look for new talent for the Windsor Theater. He asked her what kind of roles I played and how I sang and danced, and after taking it all in, he bit his lower lip, like he always used to do when he wanted to say something. And he said:
– If this is true, they’re taking him for granted…
And he sent a messenger to me, who told me that on Shabbes day I should come to the Windsor Theater to see the “Professor” - that he needed to see me and wanted to talk with me…
low-brow, often translated as “trash,” art. The kind of cultural output loved by the masses but devoid of sophistication.↩︎
Recall, Sam and Bessie are cousins; likely their mothers are sisters↩︎
as in, performed male roles↩︎
the big-time actors↩︎
refers to a converted/baptized Jew, and is often used as a derogatory term↩︎
Jewish kosher ritual slaughter↩︎
Jewish butcher↩︎
European Jewish enlightenment movement↩︎
His family had fallen on hard times, and becoming a missionary was a way to earn some money↩︎
This is a very specific phrase that Sam uses from the Talmud Megilla 12b: כטוב לב המלך ביין↩︎
Biblical Abraham’s father↩︎
“Our father Abraham,” as he is often referred to in Judaism↩︎
The actual words Sam gives here are full of idioms and Yiddish feeling, which don’t translate well into English.↩︎