Adler criticizes it for its lack of "strong monologues", "powerful situations", and "dramatic conflict", but describes it as coming, like Shulamith and Bar Kokhba from "Goldfaden's best period", and writes that "under the calm of the title character's demeanor lay a grand power, a power he has sworn never to use unless all else failed," and characterizes this role as a model for "what I call the 'Grand Jew', that has given my life in the theater its greatest meaning."
Held began working in the garment industry, then found work as a singer in Jewish theatres in Paris and, later, after her father's death, London, where her roles included the title role in a production by Jacob Adler of Abraham Goldfaden's Shulamith; she was also in Goldfaden's ill-fated Paris troupe, whose cashier stole their money before they ever played publicly.