YISROEL BARSKI (ISRAEL BARSKY)

YISROEL BARSKI (ISRAEL BARSKY) (d. c. 1900)

Born in Odessa, he was a teacher at a Talmud-Torah (elementary school for poorer children).  He emigrated to the United States in the early 1880s with the first group of “Am olam.”  He took part in the socialist movement of tailors in New York.  He wrote about this in Yidishe folkstsaytung (Jewish people’s news) in New York, using the alias “Yisroel Ben Olam.”  He was a delegate of the Fareynikte yidishe geverkshaftn (United Hebrew Trades) to the first congress of the Second Socialist International in Paris in 1889.  He also took part in one of the first Yiddish theater performances in the United States, together with Boris Tomashevsky, in 1882.  He wrote the plays, such as Di vanzinige pogrom (The maniacal pogrom), among others.  He edited the serial Shnayder-farband (Tailors union).  He died in Pennsylvania about 1900.

Sources: Z, Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Geshikhte fun der yidisher arbeter bavegung in di fareynikte shtatn (History of the Jewish labor movement in the United States), vol. 2 (New York: YIVO), see index; Kalman Marmor, Der onhoyb fun der yidisher literatur in amerike (The beginning of Yiddish literature in America) (New York, 1940), see index; Z. Zilbertsvayg, Teater-leksikon, vol. 1.