David M. Hermalin

David Moses Hermalin (May 12, 1865 – June 19, 1921) was a Romanian-born Jewish American Yiddish writer, journalist, newspaper editor, and playwright.

Life Hermalin was born on May 12, 1865, in Vaslui, Romania to a commercial family. His father was Abraham Abba Hermalin.

The son of a merchant, Hermalin received a traditional education at a cheder until he was twelve. He then studied secular subjects and learned Hebrew, Russian, German and French from his teacher Hillel Goldenkorn. He moved to Bucharest when he was sixteen and lived there for four years. He worked as a journalist for Romanian newspapers in Bucharest, but was compelled to leave for protesting against Jewish persecution.

Hermalin wrote novels and treatises on popular philosophy. He made a number of loose Yiddish translations of European literature, including the works of Leo Tolstoy, Émile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Boccaccio, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Jonathan Swift. In 1895, he rewrote the Shakespearean plays Julius Caesar and Macbeth into Yiddish, which were then staged as Yiddish plays. He then adopted other plays into Yiddish theater, including Coriolanus, Goethe's Faust, Strindberg’s The Father, and Hauptmann’s Elga, and created his own plays. He was buried in Mount Lebanon Cemetery.