Dora Wasserman

Dora Wasserman CM (née Goldfarb; There she learned about and performed in live-performance theatres. She was the child of a modest Jewish family. Her father was a locksmith. After studies at the School of singing Rimsky-Korsakov of Moscow, she entered to the Jewish Theater of Moscow (the GOSET), which she graduated in 1939, after 4 years of formation with great masters, including Solomon Mikhoels.

With her diploma, Dora Wasserman left Moscow for Kiev, Ukraine, Between 1958 and 1963, Wasserman mounted many productions, including Hanna Szenes by Aharon Megged, The Lottery by Sholem Aleichem and Sholem Asch's Kiddush Hashem and Uncle Moses. By 1964, when Yiddish theater, both amateur and professional, was disappearing the world over, Wasserman determined that her group needed to grow not only in scope of repertoire but in the establishment of a permanent venue. In 1967 the newly opened Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts became a permanent home for the Yiddish Theater. In 1968 a collaboration began between Wasserman and the composer Eli Rubinstein which made possible the dynamic, large-scale musical comedies that challenged her group and elicited enthusiastic response from audiences and critics alike.

Between 1974 and 1988 Wasserman worked with Isaac Bashevis Singer, adapting six of his works for her company, among them In My Father's Court (1974), Yentl (1979), Gimpel The Fool (1982) and The Ball (based on The Gentleman from Frampol) (1988). In 1992 the Yiddish version of Les Belles Soeurs by Michel Tremblay, received a dynamic staging, furthering ties with Montreal's French people. She made many Yiddish classics and translated authors contemporary as Michel Tremblay. In 1996, after a stroke, she officially handed direction of the Montreal Yiddish Theater to her daughter Bryna.

Dora Wasserman died on December 15, 2003, in Montreal, aged 84.

Although Wasserman did not live to see it, her daughters Ella (who lives in Israel) and Bryna (who lives in Montreal) helped celebrate the 50th anniversary of their mother's eponymous accomplishment.