Throwback Thursday: Yoo Hoo, TV-Icon Mrs. Weissman

Dora Weissman (left) and an unknown woman / Copyright Forward Association
Welcome to Throwback Thursday, a weekly photo feature in which we sift 116 years of Forward history to find snapshots of women’s lives.
Sometime in the 1900’s, in L. Boressof’s photo studio at 355 Grand and Essex, in the heart of the Lower East Side, a young Dora Weissman felt comfortable enough to pose with arms encircling another’s waist. Her head rested ever so gently against the strength of the ample bosom of another woman. Both gaze straight ahead at the camera in their warm embrace. Perhaps it was her mother.
Weissman established a bright career starting out as a child actor, under the guidance of her father Reuben Weissman, a prompter, translator and playwright and union organizer in New York City’s Yiddish Theatre.
A powerhouse, Weissman was a leading soubrette before long, acting with such notables as Jacob P. Adler and Bertha Kalich. As if that wasn’t enough, she set out to achieve every Jewish mother’s dream:medical school, after graduating Hunter College.
And then, in 1921, she married Anshel Schorr, the manager of the Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia among others. A playwright and director, he featured Dora in his many productions and together they toured Europe and Argentina before Schorr’s early death in 1942.
She would live another 32 creative and productive years — enough time to be featured as a regular guest star as the character Mrs. Herman on Gertrude Berg’s groundbreaking television show featuring yet another ample-bosomed Jewish woman, Molly Goldberg. That remained her best known role, despite appearances in the groundbreaking 1970’s films “Panic In Needle Park” and “The Hospital.”
The address of the photo studio on Grand Street, that once helped illuminate a tender moment between two women, is reportedly for sale, listed at $4.5 million.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 3
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 4
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Nike apologizes for marathon ad using the Holocaust phrase ‘Never Again’
-
Opinion I wrote the book on Hitler’s first 100 days. Here’s how Trump’s compare
-
Fast Forward Ohio Applebee’s defaced with antisemitic graffiti reading ‘Jews work here’
-
Fast Forward J.B. Pritzker accuses Trump of ‘disparaging the very foundation of Judaism’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.