David Kessler

David Kessler was a prominent actor in the first great era of Yiddish theatre. As a star Yiddish dramatic performer in New York City, he was the first leading man in Yiddish theatre to dispense with incidental music.

Born and raised in Kishinev in Moldova, Kessler, as an adolescent, improvised chaotic amateur plays in the stable of his father's inn, using fragments of what he had seen in the performances of Broder singers, who were among the first to publicly perform Yiddish-language songs outside of Purim plays and wedding parties, and were an important precursor to Yiddish theatre.

At the age of sixteen, he tried out for Israel Rosenberg's theatre troupe when they passed through town for a month. He was offered a position as an extra, but his father forbade him to go on the road. Three years later he joined a different, small travelling troupe and spent three years traveling through Europe with that troupe, first in Russia, and then in Romania.

He moved to London in 1886, then immigrated to the United States in 1890, settling in New York City.

In one of the first Yiddish-language productions of Shakespeare, he played the title role in "Othello," opposite Jacob P Adler's "Iago."

He was also responsible for bringing the famed actress Bertha Kalish to America.

In New York City Kessler resumed his career.

In 1891 he acted under Jacob P Adler in Jacob Gordin's first play "Siberia."

Later he appeared in other Gordin plays, including "God, Man, and Devil."

Others of his outstanding roles were in Sholem Asch's "God of Vengeance," David Pinski's "Yankel the Smith," and Leon Kobrin's "Yankel Boyle."

He played at all the principal Lower East Side theatres in the Yiddish Theatre District: the Thalia Theatre, the People's Theatre, and the Windsor Theatre.

In 1913 he established the David Kessler Theatre, which ranked equally with Adler's and Boris Thomashefsky's theatres, and produced many plays written by the leading Yiddish writers.

The New York Times called him, "One of the leading Yiddish actors in the United States.”

He was the manager of Kessler's Second Avenue Theatre for many years.

The excellent composer, Joseph Rumshinsky, wrote in the Jewish Forward newspaper about Kessler in 1953. He wrote the following:

“I do not know what kind of actor David Kessler would have been if he had been educated, if he could have been so natural in speech in life. His impudence, his simplicity made him great. He spoke in life as he felt, and he felt on the stage where he spoke.

He is said to have once spoken to a shund writer, after he had read him the first act of a new play: "Who writes like that?" I believe that only Kessler could express himself in this way ... "

The happiest period of David Kessler's life was during the Jacob Gordin period. Then Kessler felt like a fish in water. His long-held dream has come true. He really created and grew up with Jacob Gordin.”

Now, if you’d like, you may listen to David Kessler sing “Mizmor l’Dovid,” which will be introduced by the Yiddish actress, Miriam Kressyn.