Jennie was born in New York City in 1896. She was a wonderful dramatic actress and singer who was known for playing unhappy heroines and, later on, their mothers.
Chaim Ehrenreich, a writer for the Jewish Forward newspaper, writes about her in this way:
"Jennie began to play in Yiddish theatre at six years of age in the former Windsor Theatre.
She did not come from a theatre family. Her father was a butcher.
But she had a voice for singing and the temperament. She also possessed a strong educational power. She already was given her first children’s role in "Little Hannah, the Seamstress,” for which she was strongly praised, both by the star of the theatre, Bertha Kalish, as well as by the public. She immediately was engaged to play children’s roles in the theatre with a weekly salary of nine dollars – a large sum fifty-eight years ago.
Also, during the following season, she was engaged by the actress Keni Lipzin for the Thalia Theatre, where she played children’s parts for about seven years.
Jacob Gordin wrote special roles for her in his dramas, “The Chastity of the Family” and “The Unknown” – and this made such a strong impression on the young Jennie.
She began to get adult roles at the age of thirteen. She was then an actress with years of experience, and with many children’s roles behind her. Her first performance in an adult role was in Joseph Lateiner’s “The Jewish Heart.” Even the critics praised her for her acting in the play.
During the same season Jennie began to play in vaudeville on Clinton Street. There she met Max Gabel, with whom she began to act two years later in his own theatre on Third Street. Their first great success was in the play, “The Call of the Shofar,” which Gabel had written especially for her.
The “golden years” of Jennie’s career took place when she played with Max Gabel in his successful melodramas that ran for entire seasons, plays such as “The Great Moment,” “Souls for Sale,” “A Girl’s Dream,” “Clear Conscience,” “Everything for Love,” "Public Opinion,” “Her Great Secret,” and many others.
However, Jennie was not only an actress of melodramatic roles. She was an artist with an innate sense of proportion and realism. She stood out in Jacob Gordin’s “Chasia the Orphan,” and in Chaim Liberman’s “The Vow.”
Her acting demonstrated the virtues of sincerity and immersion in a role, and her voice resonated clearly in the highest galleries of the theatre.
Jennie was, as is every genuine artist, a proud and cheerful person.
On a personal level, she demonstrated a sense of humor, clean humor. She never uttered an impure word to her lips, not privately, and not on the stage.
Jennie was a mentsh, a human being with many virtues. She probably also had human weaknesses, but her kindness, her honesty, her friendship trumped them all."
