At a time when Eastern Europe was only beginning to experience the Industrial Revolution, Pinski was the first to introduce to its stage a drama about urban Jewish workers; a dramatist of ideas, he was notable also for writing about human sexuality with a frankness previously unknown to Yiddish literature.

He briefly began studies in Vienna (where he also wrote his first significant short story, "Der Groisser Menshenfreint"—"The Great Philanthropist"), but soon returned to Warsaw, where he established a strong reputation as a writer and as an advocate of Labor Zionism, before moving to Berlin, Germany in 1896 and to New York City in 1899.

He pursued a doctorate at Columbia University; however, in 1904, having just completed his play Family Tsvi on the day set for his Ph.D. examination, he failed to show up for the exam, and never finished the degree.

Yenkel der Shmid (Yankel the Smith, 1906) set a new level of frankness in Yiddish-language theater in dealing with sexual passions.

Ultimately, both return to their marriages, in what Sol Liptzin describes as "an acceptance of family living that neither negated the joy of the flesh nor avoided moral responsibility".

He continued to explore similar themes in a series of plays, Gabri un di Froyen (Gabri and the Women, 1908), Mary Magdalene (1910), and Professor Brenner (1911), the last of which deals with an older man in love with a young woman, again breaking Jewish theatrical tradition, because such relationships had always been considered acceptable in arranged marriages for financial or similar reasons, but socially taboo as a matter of emotional fascination.

"Professor Brenner" has been translated into English by Ellen Perecman and was presented by New Worlds Theatre Project in November 2015 in a production directed by Paul Takacs at HERE Arts Centre with David Greenspan in the leading role.

[3] The former centers on an Uptown, aristocratic German Jew, who is portrayed as an overefined and decadent, crossing paths with, but never fully participating in, the important events and currents of his time.