Isidore Lillian

Isidore Lillian (Yiddish: איזידאָר ליליען Izidor Lilien) (c. 1882 - 1960) was an actor, songwriter, playwright, and composer who was a leading figure in the New York Yiddish Theatre for the first half of the twentieth century. He wrote hundreds of songs for the theatre which were performed by such actors as Boris Thomashefsky, David Kessler, and Jacob Adler, as well as by Lillian himself. His exact birthdate is unclear; on many government documents he said September 14, 1883 but the Lexicon of Yiddish Theatre and other documents give the date as September 7, 1882. In New York, he soon became interested in the Yiddish Theatre and joined it very young, becoming a member of the Dramatist Union at 16 and joining a Vaudeville troupe by age 17. In that troupe, he wrote and performed his own sketches and songs. Music and theatre career Lillian started to write full-length plays, and lyrics for other plays and operettas in the Yiddish theatre starting in 1905. His lyrical contributions to Isidore Solotarefsky’s Yesoymim fun der velt (Orphans of the World) in 1916 were regarded as some of the best work of his career, even decades later. In the early 1930s Lillian attempted to move from thea