Jacobs, Montague Monty

(1875-1945)

   Critic. Jacobs was a staunch defender of Max Reinhardt, beginning in 1905 when he became a drama critic for the Berliner Tageblatt. At the beginning of World War I, he left Germany and emigrated to England, where he became a naturalized British citizen. Jacobs returned to Berlin in 1920 and became editor of the Vossische Zeitungs literary section; the following decade witnessed his best writing, which was intellectually insightful and in most cases dedicated to the reader's understanding of productions he had seen. He eschewed attempts to proselytize, preferring instead to evaluate unsentimentally—though he often castigated directors who tried to impose themselves on productions.