Keni Liptzin (1856 – September 28, 1918)[1][2] (surname sometimes spelled Lipzin) was a star in the early years of Yiddish theater, probably the greatest female dramatic star of the first great era of Yiddish theater in New York City.

Born in Zhytomyr, in the Volhynian Governorate of the Russian Empire (in present-day Ukraine), Liptzin had no formal education.

She ran away from an arranged marriage, running to Smila, where she was first discovered (originally for her singing voice) and put on stage by Israel Rosenberg in 1880.

She originally used the stage name Keni Sonyes, but after marrying theatrical prompter Volodya Liptzin in London in the mid-1880s, she took his last name.

Abraham Cahan, an editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, said of her performance in Mirele Efros, "Liptzin's pride, her humor, her shrewdness, come not from Lithuania, but from Shakespeare," describing her as "...a Lear... a queen..." In her own theater, she also put on works by Victor Hugo, Alphonse Daudet, Gerhart Hauptmann, and Leonid Andreyev.