During the first two decades of the twentieth century, the majority of immigrants pouring into America were from eastern Europe and Russia, many of them Jews fleeing religious persecution and poverty. The Lower East Side of Manhattan was home to the largest population of Jews in America — some 1.4 million by 1915. The new arrivals provided a talent pool and an audience base that made a booming business out of the theatrical tradition known as Yiddish theater, which had existed in the United States since the 1880s. By 1919 New York was home to nearly two dozen Yiddish theaters, where both comedy and serious drama were performed. Among the actors were Jacob Adler, David Kessler, Bertha Kalich, and Paul Muni. Adler and Kessler went on to form their own Yiddish-theater companies, while Kalich and Muni made the transition to mainstream theater (Muni to...