Benzion Witler

Ben-Zion Witler (Ben-Tsion Vitler, BenZion Wittler), 1907–1961, Jewish singer, actor, coupletist, comedian and composer. At the age of six Witler moved with his family from Belz (Galitsia) to Vienna, where he received a strict Chasidic religious upbringing; fearing his family's reaction, in 1919 (at the age of 12) he secretly joined the "Free Jewish Folksbiene" under an alias. He worked briefly as a journalist at the German Zionist weekly Viner Morgen-tsaytung (Vienna Morning Times) but in 1926 returned to the Vienna theater scene, performing in comedies and operettas, studying opera repertoire with Yulianovsky and Fuchs, touring (Paris, London, South Africa, France and Vienna). He spent three years in Poland in the mid-1930s, becoming a "public darling." In 1937 he appeared in Riga in A Khasene in Shtetl and The Galitzian Wedding by William Siegel. Some of his many other starring roles were in Yanko the Gypsy, A Millionaire's Caprice, The American Litvak, The Brave Officer, The Bandit Gentleman, The Strength of Love, The Bride with Three Brothers, The Golden Bridegroom, The Threshold of Joy, It's Hard to be a Jew by Sholom Aleichem, Ansky's The Dybbuk, Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin's God, Man and Devil, and David Pinski's Yankel the Smith. Starting in 1940 he toured the U.S., playing at NYC's Hopkinson Theater in Siegel's Forgotten Women and Chicago's Douglas Theater in Siegel's A Golden Dream. In 1946 he toured Argentina, at Buenos Aires Mitre Theater in Kalmanovitsh's "Home Sweet Home." He performed with Argentinian-born actress Shifra Lerer, his wife, through North and South America, Israel, and South Africa through the 1950s.