Eduard Jacobson

Eduard Jacobson was born in Gross Strelitz, Silesia, to Jewish parents Dorothea (née Biraver) and Rabbi Jacob Jacobson. He attended the Gymnasium in Oels from 1846 to 1850, and then until 1854 the grammar school in Ostrowo. From 1854 to 1858 he studied medicine at the University of Berlin, receiving his M.D. there in early 1859.

Jacobson's playwrighting career began in 1856 with the popular farces Bei Wasser und Brot and Faust und Gretchen, the latter of which appeared at the Kroll Theatre under the direction of Karl August Görner, starring Theodor Lobe as Faust.[1] The extraordinary acclaim he won with it determined him to devote himself exclusively to such literary activity. From this time on he wrote—either alone or in collaboration with Ottokar Franz Ebersberg, Otto Girndt, Gustav von Moser, Julius Rosen, Rudolf Kneisel, and others—burlesques which became stock pieces in major German theatres.[2] His farce 500,000 Teufel, for instance, played 300 times successively in Berlin.[3]

In the United States, many of his plays were staged at the New York Stadt Theater and Thalia Theater.[4]

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Singer, Isidore (1904). "Jacobson, Eduard". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. p. 46.