Moisey Goldblat

Moishe Goldblatt (; ; ; 16 December 1896, Herța, Dorohoi County, Romania – 1974, Haifa, Israel) was a Jewish actor and director in a Yiddish theatre, as well as in Russian and Romani theatre. He was the founder and first artistic director of the Moscow Romani Theatre Romen (1931–1937).

Early years and the Moscow GOSET Zalmen Zylbercweig's Leksikon fun yidishn teater says that he was born in the northern Moldavian town of Herța in Romania (now in Chernivtsi Oblast, Ukraine). He studied in a cheder and then two years in a Romanian primary school, later one year in a "modernized cheder" (cheder metukan).

As a teenager he joined a travelling Jewish troupe from Galați. He served in the Royal Romanian Army during the First World War, but, after the Russian Revolution of 1917, in September, he fled to Soviet Russia. The stage designer was Alexander Tyshler, the musical director S. M. Bugachevsky, the literary director Ivan Rom-Lebedev, and the administrator the veteran Jewish actor I. D. Fail.

Goldblatt was artistic director and chief stage director of the Indo-Romen theatre-studio until 1936. Productions of these years were staged in the Romani language, beginning with the revue Atasya i dadyves ("Yesterday and Today") on 30 April 1931. He went on to direct Life on Wheels (1931), The Pharaoh’s Tribe (1933), Between the Fires (1934), an adaptation of Prosper Mérimée’s Carmen, and several works by Ivan Rom-Lebedev including A Camp in the Steppe (1934), Daughter of the Steppes (1935) and A Wedding in the Camp (1935). His final work for the Indo-Romen theatre was a 1936 production of Pushkin’s poem The Gypsies, with music by Alexander Krein and designs by Tyshler.

In 1935, Goldblatt co-directed with Yevgeny Shneider the film The Last Camp, produced at the Gorky Film Studio and featuring Nikolai Mordvinov, Mikhail Yanshin, and actors of Indo-Romen, including the famous singer Lyalya Chyornaya. After his departure, the troupe was led by M. M. Yanshin and its productions were shifted to the Russian language.

Goldblatt also translated plays from Russian and Romanian to Yiddish.

Goldblatt authored memoirs on Les Kurbas and Solomon Mikhoels (1969), as well as later unpublished reminiscences about Mikhoels and Benjamin Zuskin (1974). From 1972 he lived in Haifa, Israel.

Family Wife: Eva Isaakovna Shapiro, actress. Grandson: , artistic director of the (EMDT).

Honours and awards Order of the Red Banner of Labour (3 January 1959) Merited Art Worker of the Ukrainian SSR (1945) People's Artist of the Kazakh SSR (1943) Order of the Badge of Honour (31 March 1939) Medal "For Distinguished Labour" (31 March 1939) Honored Artist of the RSFSR (5 March 1935)

Filmography As actor 1925 — Jewish Luck, dir. Alexei Granovsky. 1942 — The Priceless Head («Бесценная голова»), in , dir. Boris Barnet.

As director 1935 — The Last Gypsy Camp («Последний табор»; co-directed with ).