Yetta Zwerling

Yetta was born on 25 December 1894 in Kohliev, near Lemberg, in Eastern Galicia. While her father was an employee in a fruit business, at the same time he performed as a klezmer musician.

Yetta learned in a religious elementary school, and through her sisters Bessie and Mamie, who had sung in the chorus of the Lemberg Yiddish theatre, Yetta was taken into the theatre.

She immigrated with her family to America, and here she graduated high school and began to act in children's roles in variety theatre, and soon thereafter in English vaudeville, where she acted for eight years.

Her first performance on the Yiddish legitimate stage was in Chicago, Illinois, in Isidore Solotorefsky's play, "The Yeshiva Student," during the guest appearance of the Yiddish actors Sara Adler and Joseph Kessler.