Samuel (Schlomo) Grossman, Jewish playwright, theatrical manager and social worker of New York and Philadelphia, who had been staying here for the past two months with his father-in-law in the Dorchester section, committed suicide yesterday by jumping from the sixteenth floor of the Statler Hotel. Mr. Grossman had recently been suffering from insomnia, and it is believed that this, together with the fact that he had lately been unemployed, drove him to his deed.
Mr. Grossman was one of the most talented and most beloved young Jewish communal leaders in this country and his tragic fate is widely mourned in Jewish circles. Though born in this country, he had a perfect command of the Hebrew language and wrote many plays in that language for children of Hebrew schools. Altogether he wrote about seventy one-act plays, which were published by the New York Bureau of Jewish Education, and also arranged “Fifty Songs from the Bible”. He was one of the organizers and first general manager of Maurice Schwartz’s Yiddish Art Theatre from 1918 to 1922.
Subsequently he was entertainment director of the Brooklyn Jewish Center and director of the first Anglo-Jewish Playhouse in this country. He was co-author of the play “Samson and Delilah”, which was produced by Arthur Hopkins, and adaptor of Gogol’s “Inspector General”, which was produced by Maurice Schwartz.
Mr. Grossman was born in 1893 in Allentown, Pa., the son of a rabbi. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University and Jewish Theological Seminary.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
