Although her reputation as an artist must have benefited from the association with her husband, Jacob P. Adler, Sara Adler was an admired actor and a strong presence on the Yiddish stage. Born in Odessa about 1858, the daughter of Pessye and Ellye Levitsky, Sara (Levitsky) Adler was educated in Russian-language schools. She made her stage debut at age eight as Amalia in Schiller’s The Robbers. After winning a scholarship to study voice at the Odessa Conservatory, she decided on a stage career. The Jewish Theater Circle hired her as a between-acts divertissement, singing Russian songs. After learning Yiddish, she joined the troupe of Moishe Heine-Haimovitch (Maurice Heine) and studied with the Viennese stage director Gritzkopf. While on a tour of Russia, she married Heine. The banning of Yiddish theater and other restrictions on Jews in Russia led the troupe to relocate to London, where hardship almost caused the young actor to abandon the profession. After Heine joined forces with Jacob P. Adler, the combined troupes went to America in 1883, where, as Madam Heine, she became leading lady in Shomer’s The Orphans. After divorcing Heine, she joined Jacob Adler, who was with the Finkel-Feinman-Mogulesko troupe, becoming their principal actor for both dramatic and operetta roles. She married Adler in 1891, following his divorce from Dina Shtettin, becoming his third wife.

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Her major roles included Mina in Kobrin’s Mina, Fania Zorchis in Gordin’s Emese Kraft [True power], Batsheva in Gordin’s The Homeless, the woman in Gordin’s The Stranger, Beata in Gordin’s Elisha ben Avuya, Gittele in Libin’s Broken Hearts, the mother in Marcovich’s melodrama A Mother’s Tears, Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, Yelena in Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata, and the gypsy in Tolstoy’s Resurrection. Adler performed actively until 1928 in both New York and the “provinces.” In her eightieth year, she performed the third act of Resurrection at a benefit performance, where a critic compared her with Eleanora Duse. She died in New York on April 28, 1953.