Leon Kobrin

Leon Kobrin (1873¹–1946) was a playwright in Yiddish theater, writer of short stories and novels, and a translator. As a playwright he is generally seen as a disciple of Jacob Gordin, but his mature work was more character-driven, more open and realistic in its presentation of human sexual desire, and less polemical than Gordin's. Many of his plays were "ghetto dramas" dealing with issues of tradition and assimilation and with generational issues between Jewish immigrants to America and the first generation of American-born Jews.

Life and works

Born in Vitsebsk, then part of Imperial Russia, culturally considered at that time part of Lithuania, now in Belarus, he wrote in Russian before he emigrated to the United States in 1892; only in America did he discover that there was such a thing as Yiddish literature and theater. In the U.S. he first worked menial jobs in Philadelphia and in rural Pennsylvania, before settling in New York City. He became a journalist, then a writer of short stories, and finally gained fame as a playwright.