Zeydl Shmuel-Yehuda Helman

Zeydl Shmuel-Yehuda Helman (Yiddish: זײדל שמואל-יהודיה העלמאַן, c. 1855 – c. 1938), who often published under the pen name Hazman (הזמ״ן), was a Romanian Jewish actor, songwriter, journalist, and educator.

[1][2][3][4][5] In addition to working as an actor in the Yiddish theatre in Romania and in the United States, he wrote and published a large number of Yiddish theatre songs which were widely performed in the late nineteenth century, making him one of the earliest popular songwriters in the genre.

[2][3][4] Among his better-known pieces were Yismekhu, Tsions tsvue, Gedenk zhe, yankl, and Ervakh, srolik; he also wrote Yiddish and Hebrew language poems.

[7][3][1] In 1893 Abba Sheyngold brought Helman to the United States to become a Yiddish theatre actor there under the name Helmanesko.

[8] He played a few seasons in New York City and Philadelphia, including at the Romanian Opera House with Jacob Adler and at Boris Thomashefsky's theater.