Born 1885 in Narayiv, Eastern Galicia (modern day Ukraine) Moyshe Nadir (Pseudonym of Yitskhok Rayz / Isaac Reiss) moved to America at the age of thirteen. Nadir worked as an insurance agent, window cleaner and sweatshop worker. From 1902 he began publishing poetry, satirical sketches and articles in various Yiddish language newspapers and periodicals in New York.

He wrote and staged various plays, translated works into Yiddish (by writers such as Mark Twain and Eugene O’Neill) and wrote prolifically for leftist periodicals such as Morgn Frayhayt, Hamer and Signal.  

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