The Yiddish King Lear
The Yiddish King Lear (Yiddish: דער ייִדישער קעניג ליר, romanized: Der Yidisher Kenig Lir, also known as The Jewish King Lear) was an 1892 play by Jacob Gordin, and is generally seen as ushering in the first great era of Yiddish theater in New York City's Yiddish Theater District, in which serious drama gained prominence over operetta. Gordin, a respected intellectual and Yiddish-language novelist, had been recruited by Jacob Adler in an effort to create a more serious repertoire for Yiddish theater, comparable to what he knew from Russian theater.