{"id":53562,"date":"2014-06-03T12:17:27","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T10:17:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iemj.org\/witler-ben-zion-1907-1961\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T11:21:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T09:21:34","slug":"witler-ben-zion-1907-1961","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iemj.org\/en\/witler-ben-zion-1907-1961\/","title":{"rendered":"Witler, Ben-Zion (1907-1961)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben-Zion Witler (or Ben-Tsion Vitler, or also BenZion Wittler), was born in 1907 in Belz, in Galicia, and died in 1961. He was a singer, but also an actor and composer.
At the age of 6, he left Belz with his family, and went to Vienna, where he got a strict chassidic religious education. Fearing his family\u2019s reaction, he joined secretly under a pen-name the \u00ab Jewish Free Theatre \u00bb at the age of 12. He worked briefly as a journalist in the German Zionist weekly newspaper\u00a0Wiener Morgenzeitung<\/em>, but in 1926, he returned to Vienna\u2019s stage to perform comedies and operettas. He also studied opera repertoire with Yulianovsky and Fuchs and participated in tours in Paris, London, and South Africa.<\/p>\n

In the middle of the 1930\u2019s, he spent three years in Poland, where he became the \u00ab audience favorite \u00bb. In 1937, he performed in Riga in the play\u00a0A Khasene in Shtetl<\/em>\u00a0and in\u00a0The Galician Wedding<\/em>\u00a0by William Siegel. Among many other roles and plays, we can mention\u00a0Yanko the Gipsy, A Millionaire\u2019s Caprice, The American Litvak, The Brave Officer, The Bandit Gentleman, The Strength of Love, The Bride with Three Brothers, The Golden Bridegroom, The Threshold of Joy, It\u2019s Hard to be a Jew<\/em>\u00a0by Sholom Aleichem,\u00a0The Dybbuck<\/em>\u00a0by Shalom Ansky,\u00a0God, Man and Devil<\/em>\u00a0by Jacob Mikhailovich Gordin, and\u00a0Yankel the Smith<\/em>\u00a0by David Pinski.<\/p>\n

From 1940 on, he performed in USA, in particular New York, in the Hopkinson theatre, in\u00a0Forgotten Women<\/em>, by William Siegel, and in Chicago, in the Douglas theatre in\u00a0A Golden Dream<\/em>, by the same author.<\/p>\n

In 1946, year of birth of another great man, he performed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the Mitre theatre, in\u00a0Home Sweet Home<\/em>, by Kalmanovitsh. He performed with his wife, Shifra Lerer, an actress born in Argentina, until the 1950\u2019s, in North and South America, Israel and in South Africa.<\/p>\n

He recorded hundreds of songs, among which the most known :<\/p>\n