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History
Dora Wasserman (née Goldfarb), actress and theatre director, was born in Zhytomyr, Ukraine in 1919 and died in Montreal in 2003. She was trained at the Moscow Drama School and toured with the Kiev State Theatre before being hired to perform in Kazakhstan during the Second World War. She married Sam Wasserman in 1943 and they had two daughters, Ella and Bryna. They came to Montreal in 1950.
In 1956 the Yiddish Drama Group was founded by graduates of the Jewish People's School in Montreal under the directorship of Dora Wasserman. In 1969 Dora Wasserman was awarded the J.I. Segal Prize for her outstanding contribution to the Jewish cultural life in Montreal. In 1992 she was invested as a member of the Order of Canada. She was a recipient of the Masques Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Académie québécoise du theatre in 1998. She was also given the Order of Quebec in 2003.
Dora Wasserman continued to direct the Yiddish Drama Group until 1996 when she suffered a stroke. The group continues to perform at Montreal’s Segal Centre for the Performing Arts, formerly the Saidye Bronfman Centre, as well as in cities across North America, Europe, and Israel. The group was renamed the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre in 2002.