When she was 6, actress Rosa Margulies noticed her pretty voice and drew her into child roles at the Windsor Theater, including Hanele di neytorin (Hannah the seamstress) with Bertha Kalich.

She went to Kenny Liptsin in the Thalia Theater and played in Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin's טהרת המשפחה Family Purity—for which Sigmund Mogulesko wrote her the song Oyf yener zayt (On the other side)—and Der umbakanter (The stranger).

[2] At the age of 13 she began to play adult roles for Max R. Veyner, her first being Yoysef Lateyner's Dos Yidishe harts (the Jewish heart).

Goldstein was known for playing unhappy heroines and, later, their mothers: There was the tragedienne Jennie Goldstein wringing her heart and wracking her sob-filled voice as she repeated the travails of the innocent immigrant girl seduced by the villainies of the cruel and heartless New York sweatshop world.

She played at Jewish organizational functions, performed in two Broadway shows in the 1950s, and appeared on television.