ROZE VOLINSKI-NYUMAN

ROZE VOLINSKI-NYUMAN (April 11, 1888-May 21, 1953)

            She was born in Khotin (Khotyn), Bessarabia, into a poor family.  She lost her father early and was raised by her mother.  She moved to London in early 1900, and she went to work in a factory making men’s hats, while studying in the evenings and reading books on art and literature.  In 1912 she moved to the United States.  She lived in Canada until 1915, and thereafter settled in America.  At that time she began writing poetry and at the same time turning her attention to sculpture.  She contributed poetry and stories to: Tsukunft (Future), Fraye arbeter-shtime (Free voice of labor), and Tog (Day)—in New York; Keneder odler (Canadian eagle) in Montreal; and Di prese (The press) in Buenos Aires; among other serial.  In her last years before becoming ill, she published in Tog, Di prese, and Keneder odler, a novel entitled Di froy vos hot gezigt (The women who was victorious), in which she depicted a Jewish woman who is wrenched from his poor home in a Bessarabian town and who, after years of pain and suffering, achieves her goal.  There are scenes in the novel of Jewish laboring life in England and America.  She also published in book form: Tint un leym, lider un skulpturn (Ink and clay, poetry and sculpture) (New York, 1942), 88 pp.  Her exhibited sculptures in various art salons, as well as in art centers of the Jewish Culture Congress, evoked enthusiastic responses in the Yiddish and English press.  From 1941 she became severely ill, but she did not cease working.  She was the wife of Osip Volinski.  She died in New York.

Sources: M. Ginzburg, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (August 12, 1942); Avrom Reyzen, in Di feder (New York) (1945); Tsukunft (New York) (July 1953); Dr. L. Zhitnitski, A halb yorhundert idishe literatur (A half century of Yiddish literature) (Buenos Aires, 1952), p. 76; Nyu yorker vokhnblat (New York) 464 (1953); H. Derry, in New York Times (New York) (October 15, 1956); O. Volinski, Lament un lid (New York, 1956), pp. 11-16; Art Digest (New York) (September 11, 1953); Who’s Who in World Jewry (New York, 1955), p. 797.

Khayim Leyb Fuks