BINYUMIN GEILING (BEN GAILING)

BINYUMIN GEILING (BEN GAILING) (December 25, 1898-March 27 1999)

            He was born in the town of Krasnopol, Suwalk district, Russian Poland.  He studied in religious elementary school and yeshivas.  From 1914 he was living in the United States, initially in New York and later in Boston.  For a time he was a tailor, subsequently a Yiddish actor.  For the last fifteen years he has been the manager of two Yiddish radio programs in Boston.  He was active in the Zionist labor movement.  He began by writing humorous little poems and parodies, and then he thought up his own melodies for them, when he was thirteen or fourteen years of age, tunes that were sung in the town.  In 1917 he published humorous features in Arbayter prese (Workers press), Kundes (Prankster), and the monthly Tsuzamen (Together), among other serials, in New York.  In 1928 he presided over a column, “In un arum yidishn teater” (In and around Yiddish theater), in Idisher zhurnal (Jewish journal) in Montreal, Canada, and in Keneder odler (Canadian eagle) in Montreal.  He also published humorous sketches and poems in Idishe velt (Jewish world) in Philadelphia and in Tog (Day) in New York.  He was in charge of the column “Ben geiling shrabt” (Ben Gailing writes) for the Boston Forverts (Forward).  He authored Git a shmeykhl, a bukh fun laykhtn humor un satire far ale ṭeg fun a gants yor (Smile, a book of light humor and satire for every day and all year) (Boston: Zikh aleyn, 1949), 224 pp.  He also composed the melodramas Fremde foygl (Strange bird) and Di froy in keytn (The woman in chains), which were performed on the Yiddish stage.  He published a number of songs with notation.  Among his pen names was Ben-Avrom.  He was living in Dorchester, Massachusetts.

Source: Y. Glatshteyn, in Idisher kemfer (November 10, 1950).