Maurice Schwartz

Maurice Schwartz, born Avram Moishe Schwartz (June 18, 1890 – May 10, 1960),
. ''New York Times''. May 11, 1960. Retrieved May 15, 2020. born in the Volhynia province of the Russian Empire, was a stage and film actor active in the United States. He founded the Yiddish Art Theatre and its associated school in 1918 in New York City and was its theatrical producer and director. He also worked in Hollywood, mostly as an actor in silent films but also as a film director, producer, and screenwriter.

Early life and education

Schwartz was born Avrom Moishe Schwartz in Sudylkiv, Ukraine, then in the Russian Empire, to Isaac, a grain dealer, and his wife Rose (née Bernholtz) Schwartz, a Jewish family.Shvarts, Moris (Avrom Moyshe)
(in Yiddish) in Zalmen Zylbercweig (ed.), ''Leksikon fun yidishn teater'' (Lexicon of the Yiddish Theater). Vol. 3. New York: Hebrew Actors' Union; Elisheva, 1959. cols. 2327-2368. Moishe was the oldest of three boys among the six siblings, and had three older sisters.Martin Boris, Chap. One, ''Once a Kingdom: The Life of Maurice Schwartz and the Yiddish Art Theatre''
published by permission of Boris estate, at ''Great Artist Series'', Museum of Family History, accessed September 13, 2013 Like many similar families, the Schwartzes immigrated to the United States in stages. In 1898 Isaac Schwartz emigrated with his three teen-aged daughters, so they could all work to get started in New York and earn money for passage for Rose and their three young sons.

The following year he sent tickets for his wife and the boys. They got as far as Liverpool, where they were to sail for the U.S., but got separated. Rose was forced to leave without Moishe. Without any English, he made his way to London, where he lived for two years, surviving with the help of strangers. His father located him in 1901, and they traveled together to New York when Moishe was twelve.

Upon rejoining his family in New York City's Lower East Side, Schwartz took the first name of Morris. His father enrolled him in the Baron de Hirsch school, founded to teach Jewish immigrants. After school he worked in his father's small factory recycling rags for the clothing industry. When an uncle introduced him to Yiddish theatre, Schwartz was captivated. At that time groups of boys and young men were partisans of different theatres and actors. Schwartz, who admired the actors David Kessler and Jacob Adler, began reading widely, especially classic plays by such authors as William Shakespeare and Henrik Ibsen.Boris, Chap. Two, ''Once a Kingdom''
/ref>

Because his Orthodox father opposed his desire to act, Schwartz left home and took a variety of jobs to support himself before finally finding work as an actor. He joined various traveling theater troupes, including one that toured the Midwest. On his return to New York City in 1907, he found his heroes, Kessler and Adler, continuing to rise in their profession. Soon Schwartz obtained a contract with Michael Thomashevsky's Green Street Theatre in Philadelphia.Boris, Chap. Five, ''Once a Kingdom''
/ref>

Marriage and family

Schwartz was briefly married to Eva Rafalo, a contralto singer born in Cincinnati, Ohio, whom he met while touring with an acting company. They were divorced by 1911, after which he returned full-time to New York. Eva and her older sister Clara Rafalo were both actresses in the Yiddish theatre. After the divorce, Eva married Henry (Zvi Hersch) Fishman, another actor on the Yiddish stage.

In 1914 Schwartz married Anna Bordofsky, a 24-year-old woman from Brest-Litovsk, Belarus, who had been in the United States about a decade. She was initially involved with Kessler's Yiddish theater as well. She became his business partner, helping run the theatre. They remained married until Schwartz's death.

In 1947 the couple adopted two Polish Jewish war orphans, Moses and Fannie Englander, aged 9- and 8-years old, respectively. After losing their parents Abraham Joseph and Chana Englander in 1942, the children had been placed by the underground with Belgian Christian families. Fannie was renamed Marcelle and grew up with Maurice and Denise Vander Voordt as the only parents she really knew. The Vander Voordts protected her as their own during the German occupation. She spoke only French.Risa Schwartz Whiting, with Robin Whiting, "My Father, Maurice Schwartz"
''Lives in the Yiddish Theatre'', Museum of Family History website, accessed September 13, 2013

After the war, Jewish groups had worked to reunite families and place Jewish orphans with Jewish families. Schwartz met the boy Moses at the Wezembeek Orphanage in Belgium in 1946 while on a theatrical tour for displaced persons. He arranged to adopt Moses and his sister through the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), which had located Fannie and brought the siblings together. The Schwartzes met Fannie for the first time when she arrived with her brother at La Guardia Airport. They renamed the children Marvin (or Norman) and Risa. In New York, they taught them Yiddish and English, and about Judaism. Risa became an actress in the United States, most commonly known for her role in The Tenth Man (Chayefsky play)

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