In London he met the New Yorker Charles Zunser, the son of the folk bard Eliakum Zunser), who convinced him to emigrate to the United States in 1904. Blocked by the union from working in the theater, he taught piano and wrote compositions including a funeral march commemorating the Kishinev pogrom. 1905-1906 he was director at Boston's Hope Theater. He then returned to New York, where he was still unable to work in theater. He was finally hired, in 1907, as director at Brooklyn's Lyric Theater, and a year later was taken on as conductor and composer at the Windsor Theater thanks to dramatic actor Jacob Adler.