Maria Lerner

Born Miriam Rabinowitz in Berdichev in the Russian Empire (today Berdychiv in Ukraine) to a distinguished family, Lerner married Osip (Yosef Yehudah) Lerner, a prolific trilingual Haskalah writer and pioneering Yiddish playwright and critic, at a young age. Living in Odessa in the 1880s, Lerner became active in Ḥoveve Tsiyon and began writing for the Yiddish journal Yudishes folksblat, including her novella, Odes bilder (Pictures from Odessa; ca. 1889). Lerner was one of the few nineteenth-century published Yiddish female playwrights and short-story authors. In addition to her own work, she helped translate and transliterate plays for her husband. Later, when her husband converted to Christianity, she did as well and changed her name to Maria.