Joseph Lateiner

{{Short description|Romanian Yiddish playwright (1853–1935)}} {{Expand German|topic=bio|Joseph Lateiner|date=December 2009}} '''Joseph Lateiner''' ({{ne|'''Finkelshteyn'''}}; December 25, 1853 – February 23, 1935)<ref> [https://congressforjewishculture.org/people/3659/Lateiner-Yoysef-Joseph-December-25-1853-February-23-1935 Lateiner, Yoysef (Joseph) (December 25, 1853–February 23, 1935)], translated from ''Leksikon Fun Der Nayer Yidisher Literatur'' by Joshua A Fogel</ref> was a playwright in the early years of [[Yiddish theater]], first in [[Bucharest]], [[Romania]] and later in [[New York City]], where he was a co-founder in 1903 with [[Sophia Karp]] of the [[Grand Theatre (New York City)|Grand Theater]], New York's first purpose-built [[Yiddish language]] theater building.

Born in [[Iaşi]], [[Moldavia]], now [[Romania]], Lateiner got his start writing for theater in Iaşi around the start of 1878, when [[Israel Grodner]], having left [[Abraham Goldfaden]]'s Bucharest company, needed a playwright. He added some topical material to a German-language comedy ''Nathan Schlemiel oder Orthodoxe und reformirte Juden'' by J. Rosenzweig{{efn|Rosenzweig's text says that the action is "somewhere in Hungary"<ref name=rosen/> and a 1906 Hungarian reference book gives author's name as Ignácz Rosenzweig, born in [[Pozsony]] (Both Pressburg and Poszony are the names of [[Bratislava]],)<ref>{{ill|József Szinnyei|hu|Szinnyei József (bibliográfus)}}, ''[[Life and works of Hungarian writers (Szinnyei)|Life and works of Hungarian writers]]'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=f8tEAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA1183 p. 1183] (public domain, readable in Google Books)</ref>}} (Ein Tendenz-Lustspiel in 3 Acten. [[Pressburg]], 1873<ref name=rosen>[https://books.google.com/books?id=cx9cAAAAcAAJ Nathan Schlemiel oder Orthodoxe und reformirte Juden. Ein Tendenz-Lustspiel in 3 Akten], public domain, readable in Google Books</ref>), and came up with a play ''Die Tzwei Schmuel Schmelkes'' (''The Two Schmuel Schmelkes''). He translated and "Yiddishized" plays from Romanian and German; his more than 80 plays included ''[[Mishke and Moshke]]: Europeans in America (or The Greenhorns), "[[Satan in the Garden of Eden]]", and "[[The Jewish Heart]]"''.<ref>Nahma Sandrow, ''Vagabond Stars, a world history of Yiddish Theater'', pp. 106-107</ref>

By showing that Goldfaden was not the only person who could write a successful play in [[Yiddish]], he opened the floodgates for other Yiddish playwrights.

==Notes== {{notelist}} == References == {{reflist}} * [[Jacob Pavlovich Adler|Adler, Jacob]], ''A Life on the Stage: A Memoir'', translated and with commentary by [[Lulla Rosenfeld]], [[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]], New York, 1999, {{ISBN|0-679-41351-0}}. 77 (commentary).

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lateiner, Joseph}} [[Category:1853 births]] [[Category:1935 deaths]] [[Category:Yiddish theatre]] [[Category:Jewish Romanian writers]] [[Category:Romanian emigrants to the United States]] [[Category:Writers from Iași]] [[Category:Jewish dramatists and playwrights]]