Herman Yablokoff

Yiddish songwriter, lyricist, actor, playwright, director, and producer Herman Yablokoff [Hayim Yablonik] (1903–81) was born in Grodno, Russian Poland (now Belarus), where he sang as a boy chorister in the choir of Cantor (Reb) Yoshe Slonimer at the age of ten. He began playing children’s roles in local Yiddish theater when he was twelve, and at seventeen he left home to tour Lithuania and Poland with an acting troupe. In 1924, after four years with the Kovner Fareynikte Trup (United Troupe of Kovno) and travels through Germany and Holland, he emigrated to America and began playing on stages in Toronto, Montreal, and Los Angeles before settling in New York. Papirosn (Cigarettes), from his play with the same title, is probably his most enduring song, most likely an adaptation of a European folk melody to his own melodramatic lyrics, it is still sung today.