Jacob Ben-Ami

Jacob Ben-Ami was born in 1890 in Minsk, Belarus, which was then a part of Russia.
He studied in a religious elementary school and completed his education in a private school. After that he became an extra in a theatre.
From a very early age he had a strong interest in the theatre. As a small boy he sang with various cantors and often, together with other choir boys, would be taken to sing from behind the curtains in Russian theatres.
At the age of seventeen, Jacob became a prompter for a traveling Yiddish troupe in Minsk, and he also played minor roles in its productions.
After another year he encountered the Yiddish writer Peretz Hirshbein in Odessa, and Jacob helped him found the Hirshbein Troupe in which Ben-Ami performed and directed.   
After this troupe folded, he directed for a short time while in Vilna for the "Yiddish Theatre-Lovers Circle," a group that was “was the forerunner of the Vilna Troupe.”
In 1912 he arrived in America with the troupe of the Yiddish actress Sara Adler. When this troupe disbanded mid-season, he joined the Boris Thomashefsky company in 1913. In 1914 he toured the country with the Yiddish actress Keni Lipzin.
He first acted in New York City in the Neighborhood Playhouse, which was in the heart of the Jewish ghetto.
In 1918, he was engaged by star Yiddish actor Maurice Schwartz to act with his troupe at the Irving Place Theatre.
After a time, dissatisfied with Schwartz's methods, he formed his own Jewish Art Theatre.
According to David S Lifson's book, entitled "The Yiddish Theatre in America":
“The actor and director Jacob Ben-Ami with his dedication to art in the Yiddish theatre, conceived, inspired, and brought into being the Jewish Art Theatre which Ludwig Lewisohn called "the noblest theatrical enterprise existing among us."
Ben-Ami was one of the important torchbearers of art in the Yiddish theatre, and his "Jewish Art Theatre” … [provided] delight and deeply instructed all to whom the state is the home to an intenser, a clearer, and heightened vision of life."
Jacob Ben-Ami also starred in two Yiddish films: "The Wandering Jew," which was released in 1933, and "Griner felder," or "Green Fields" in 1937.
Ben-Ami also acted in two-dozen American theatre plays, starting in 1920 in the play, "Samson and Delilah."