A cantor's son, Irving Berlin was born Israel Baline on in the Russian village of Monilev. When Berlin was four, his family fled the religious oppression of czarist Russia and settled with other Jewish immigrants in New York's Lower East Side.
Following his father's death, 13-year-old “Izzy
” left school and left home. He lived in filthy lodgings and eked out a living hawking newspapers on the street, where he augmented his income singing...