Shmuel Weinberg
Shmuel Weinberg, born Shmil Weinberg and also known as Samuel Moiseyevich Weinberg, was a Russian and Polish conductor, composer, and actor in Yiddish theater. He was born in Kishinev on December 12, 1882, into a large religious Jewish family. His father, Moishe Weinberg, was an accountant. Weinberg taught himself to play the violin at age seven but received no formal musical education. He began working in a haberdashery shop and later in a printing house. In 1899, he joined Sabsaï’s touring troupe as an actor, violinist, conductor, chorus master, props manager, and prompter.
In later years, Weinberg worked as a conductor and accompanist with the troupes of Feldman, Sabsaï, Meerovich, and Kompaneets, touring western provinces of the Russian Empire. In Vilna, while conducting Lipovsky’s troupe, he composed music for the play Lively and Cheerful by Yehuda-Leib Baumvol. After the production’s success, he spent two years as composer and conductor with Hefner’s Vilna troupe and became widely known.
In 1914, Weinberg joined Sandberg’s troupe in Łódź, and in 1916 he began working at Abram Kaminski’s Central and Elysium theaters in Warsaw. From the early 1920s, he was musical director, violinist, and conductor at Warsaw’s Jewish Skala Theater. He composed music for productions including Osip Dymov’s Yoshke the Musician, Mother Is Coming, and Jacob Hochstein’s Editor Kachke. His son, the composer Moisey Weinberg, began performing there as a pianist in the theater orchestra at age ten.
During the 1930s, Weinberg worked at Isaac Nozhik’s Sambation Theater in Warsaw, composing music for five theatrical revues and Nozhik’s play Zlata the Rabbi’s Wife. He made several gramophone recordings as a violinist and conductor for the Polish Syrena recording company, including recordings with cantor Jacob Koussevitzky. With his son, he also provided music for the 1936 film Fred Makes the World Happy. Weinberg died in 1943; accounts place his death at Trawniki concentration camp or in the Luninets ghetto.
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