Jacob Waksman

Jacob Waxman, or in Yiddish Yankev Vaksman (October 22, 1866 –1942) was a Yiddish playwright who wrote dramas and tragedies, as well as operettas; he also dramatized novels and stories for the Yiddish stage.

Biography Born and raised in Lublin, Waxman was the son of a maskil (a supporter of the Jewish Enlightenment movement), and attended a state Jewish school. In 1882, when he was still a teenager, he joined the Yiddish theater troupe of Natan Schwartz (an associate of Abraham Goldfaden) in Lublin, singing in the chorus without remuneration. In 1884 he became a chorus singer with Joseph Weinstock, also in Lublin, and then went with the troupe on a tour, during which he made his first appearances on stage, in the troupe's Goldfaden repertoire. Upon his return to Lublin, he worked for two years in a clerical position in the local government, then, beginning in 1890 served in the Russian military. Later he worked for two years as a journalist for a Russian newspaper in Lublin. He was let go from that position after attracting the disfavor of local officials for publishing a story about the mistreatment of a Jew at the hands of the police. After that he worked for a while privately as a legal defender.

In 1916 Waxman founded his own Yiddish troupe in Lublin, first at the Pantheon Theater and later at the Rusalka Theater.