Janie Jacobson
Janie Jacobson’s love of Jewish tradition led her to create biblical children’s plays that were performed nationwide. Jacobson was born and raised in Londo, and immigrated to New York at age thirty. She became active in the Jewish community as a settlement worker, founder of Temple Beth El’s Bible School, and secretary of the New York chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women. But it was her plays for which she was most noted, among them For Liberty, a patriotic Hanukkah play, in 1903; Joseph and His Brethren in 1905; Ruth the Moabitess in 1910, and Esther in 1912. The plays were popular across the country, and her literary efforts were considered highly unusual for a woman of her time.
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AJYB 18 (1916–1917): 108.
Bzowski, Frances Diodato. American Women Playwrights, 1900–1930 (1992).
Obituary. NYTimes, July 3, 1915, 7:6.
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