36  January 18th, 1947


  1. idiom↩︎

  2. today being mid-1910s↩︎

  3. Plenty of idioms here; This is a direct translation, since I do not know the precise connotation of the idioms↩︎

  4. In this context, kibitz means to tease/mess with↩︎

  5. Note that Joseph Rumshinsky also relays a version of this anecdote in this article he wrote about Sam in Forverts on April 17th, 1936.↩︎

  6. It is worth noting that Sam uses the formal “you” when speaking to Kessler↩︎

  7. Lead character in Jacob Gordin’s play Gott, Mentsh, un Tayvl↩︎

  8. There are two interesting articles about this play. First is a review of Schildkraut in the play published in Di Vahrhayt. Second is an article from before the premiere when the theater opened the dress rehearsals for audiences to attend. According to the article, this was the first time a Yiddish theater had a public dress rehearsal.↩︎

  9. Correct!↩︎

  10. I have attempted an idiom translation here: וואו מ׳דאַרף אוועקשטעלן א פּינטעלע↩︎

  11. 1911/1912↩︎

  12. Presumably the Catskills↩︎

  13. Sam’s three children were Fred (Freddie; born 1894), Lillian (Lily, my great-grandmother; born 1898), and Lewis (Louie; born 1902), and all sadly died relatively young. Freddie’s lungs were severely injured after World War I, and he spent his remaining years chronically ill. He died in 1936 at the age of 40 of associated complications. Lily died in 1946 at age 48 of ovarian cancer. Louie died in 1975 at age 73. All three worked in the theater at some point; Freddie worked in box offices, Louie was a theater manager, and Lily acted in the Yiddish theater when she was young, until she married a businessman from Philadelphia at the age of 21/22. Of all of them, only Lily married and had children. She had two daughters: Connie (Constance; One can speculate that she was named based on Sam’s original last name, Konstantinovsky) and Meta (my grandmother, who went by her middle name; Her first name was Ziporah. She was named for her father’s mother, but one can also speculate that she was also named for her maternal grandmother Feige; Ziporah means “bird” in Hebrew, and Feige means “bird” in Yiddish). Meta was 15 years old when her mother Lily passed away. It is also worth noting that Suzie, Sam’s wife, passed away in 1946 after a long illness, during which Sam temporarily retired to take care of her. She convalesced in her daughter Lily’s home in Philadelphia.↩︎

  14. The Novelty Theater was located at S 4th and Driggs↩︎

  15. Adapted by Jacob Gordin into Yiddish, this play very commonly put on in the Yiddish Theater↩︎