Jacob Pavlovich Adler was a Jewish actor and star of Yiddish theater, first in Odessa, and later in London and in New York City's Yiddish Theater District.
Adler in 1920
from right: Jacob P. Adler, Zigmund Feinman, Zigmund Mogulesko, Rudolf Marx, Mr. Krastoshinsky and David Kessler, 1888
Jacob Adler
Jacob Adler in 1902
Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revues; melodrama; naturalist drama; expressionist and modernist plays. At its height, its geographical scope was comparably broad: from the late 19th century until just before World War II, professional Yiddish theatre could be found throughout the heavily Jewish areas of Eastern and East Central Europe, but also in Berlin, London, Paris, Buenos Aires and New York City.
Molly Picon (center) in Bublitchki, 1938
Report on Jewish Theatre - New York Times 29 Nov 1868 Sunday Page 5
Thalia Theatre poster (Josef Kroger, New York, 1897)
Poster for Jewmuzdramcomedy (Jewish theatre). Moscow, Russia, 1920