SHAPSE BABAD

SHAPSE BABAD (b. 1909)

Born in Lodz to well-to-do, semi-assimilated parents.  He studied in a German high school, and was a student of humanities in Paris and Warsaw.  While still quite young, he joined the Zionist labor cause.  He was an active leader in socialist academic organizations in Warsaw and in the (right) Poale-Tsiyon Party in Lodz and Warsaw.  He began publishing in Polish on literature in Głos Poranny (Morning voice) in Lodz, and later he wrote for Opinia (Opinion) in Warsaw on Yiddish literature.  He translated poems into Polish by Yiddish poets.  From 1934 he began to write in Yiddish and publish articles on social, political, and cultural matters.  From 1937 until the start of the war in 1939, he served as editor of the weekly literary supplement to Dos vort (The word) in Warsaw, in which he wrote about modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature.  He published under such pseudonyms as S. B., among others.  He died in the Nazi occupation of Poland.