ARN NAGER

ARN NAGER (November 1880-1930s)

            He was born in Vilna.  He studied in a religious primary school, in a municipal school, and with private tutors.  At age sixteen he made his way to the United States.  There he became an extra in the Union Theater.  He founded a drama club, for which he wrote a sketch “Foter un zun” (Father and son) which was later staged in the Yiddish vaudeville theater of Yoyne Spivak.  He then departed for London, and later settled in Paris where he wrote vaudeville acts.  In London he wrote (using the pen name “Nit keyn yold” [Not a chump]) theater criticism in the humorous magazine Der blofer (The bluffer) and published his couplets in a separate work.  He acted on the Yiddish stage in Argentina, France, England, Holland, Germany, and Russia, before returning to the United States, where he wrote songs for records and plays for the Yiddish theater.  He died in the 1930s in New York.

Sources: Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 2 (New York, 1934); additional information from Herman Yablokov in New York (May 1962).

Yankev Kahan