URI-BEN-HADOR

URI-BEN-HADOR (b. May 1895)

The literary name of Simkhe Shmidt, born in a village near Radevits (Rădăuţi), Bukovina.  He grew up in Brăila, Romania where his parents settled.  In 1916 he published with Yankev Botoshinski a periodical entitled Der hamer (The hammer).  After WWI, he moved to Bucharest.  He wrote for a time literary works in Romanian, among them a work whose title in English would be Ghetto, twentieth century (Bucharest, 1934).  Chapters of this novel were published in Yiddish in Indzl (Island), no. 2 (Bucharest, 1935) and in Bukareshter zamlbikher (Bucharest anthologies) (Bucharest, 1947).  He was living in Bucharest.

Sources: Y. Botoshinski, Mame yidish (Mother Yiddish) (Buenos Aires, 1949), p. 153; Tshernovitser bleter (May 13, 1934); oral information from Dr. Sh. Bikl.