(1840–1908), playwright, theater director, poet, and impresario; considered the “Father of Yiddish Theater.” Avrom Goldfadn’s productions emerged during the period of the Haskalah movement in Russia and the cultural-nationalistic activities of East European minorities. The first director to create a viable Jewish national theater, Goldfadn built up an audience and initiated its members into Western aesthetics, secularism, and a modern Jewish consciousness.
