{{Short description|Yiddish theatre performer (c.1859–1887)}} '''Sokher Goldstein''' (c. 1859 – 1887), first name also spelled '''Suher''', '''Soher''', '''Socher''', or '''Sukher''', was a singer and actor, one of the founding performers in [[Yiddish theater]]. A [[Jew]], presumably of [[Ukraine|Ukrainian]] or [[Romania]]n origin, nothing is known about his life before [[Abraham Goldfaden]] recruited him in [[Iaşi]] in 1876 as the second actor after [[Israel Grodner]] for what became the first professional Yiddish theater troupe.
Goldstein participated in the performance at Gradina Pomul Verde ("the Green Fruit-Tree Garden") that is often accounted the first professional Yiddish theater performance. Most likely, the piece by Goldfaden that was performed was a semi-improvised [[vaudeville]] called ''Dos Bintl Holts'', "The Bundle of Wood". Goldstein participated in a tour with Goldfaden to [[Botoşani]], [[Galaţi]], [[Brăila]], and finally [[Bucharest]], where the troupe settled for about two years.
According to Joel Berkowitz, "[his] boyish face landed him all the women’s roles until the troupe took on its first actress a few months later." [Berkowitz, 2004, 12] That actress was the young [[Sofia Karp|Sara Segal]], whom he met and married in Galaţi (upon marriage, she took the name Sofia Goldstein; after his death, she remarried and became famous as Sofia Karp). (''See [[Sophia Karp]] for more about the marriage.'')
In Bucharest, he performed for Goldfaden and other theater directors.
He died of [[tuberculosis]]. [Adler, 1999, 86 (commentary)]
==References== * Adler, Jacob, ''A Life on the Stage: A Memoir'', translated and with commentary by Lulla Rosenfeld, Knopf, New York, 1999, {{ISBN|0-679-41351-0}}. 64 (commentary), 86 (commentary). * [[Israil Bercovici|Bercovici, Israil]], ''O sută de ani de teatru evreiesc în România'' ("One hundred years of Yiddish/Jewish theater in Romania"), 2nd Romanian-language edition, revised and augmented by Constantin Măciucă. Editura Integral (an imprint of Editurile Universala), Bucharest (1998). {{ISBN|973-98272-2-5}}. 61. *Berkowitz, Joel, [https://web.archive.org/web/20060218183911/http://yiddishbookcenter.org/pdf/pt/44/PT44_goldfaden.pdf Avrom Goldfaden and the Modern Yiddish Theater: The Bard of Old Constantine], ''Pakn Treger'', no. 44, Winter 2004, 10-19.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldstein, Sokher}} [[Category:1850s births]] [[Category:1887 deaths]] [[Category:19th-century deaths from tuberculosis]] [[Category:Romanian Ashkenazi Jews]] [[Category:Yiddish theatre performers]] [[Category:Tuberculosis deaths in Romania]]