Sholom Secunda
1894–1974
Yiddish theater (ייִדיש טעאַטער) composer — one of the “big four” of New York's Second Avenue stage, and the writer of “Bei Mir Bistu Shein” and, with , “Dona Dona.”
was born in 1894 in Alexandria in the Kherson Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Ukraine) and emigrated with his family in 1907–08 after the pogroms, arriving at Ellis Island in steerage. A child-prodigy cantor, he studied at New York's Institute of Musical Arts (the future Juilliard) and became one of the “big four” composers of the Second Avenue Yiddish theater. His “Bay mir bistu sheyn,” written for a 1932 musical that closed after one season, was sold off for $30 — and became a worldwide hit in 1937 in the Andrews Sisters' English version, the Yiddish stage's greatest crossover. With Aaron Zeitlin he wrote “Dona Dona” for the 1940–41 play Esterke; in English translation it became a folk-revival standard.