YANKEV VASERMAN

YANKEV VASERMAN (1880-1942)

            He was born in Plotsk (Płock), Poland.  He wandered far and wide through Western Europe, the United States, and India.  He was an active Communist and a teacher of English.  Aside from articles in various Yiddish newspapers, he edited (together with Alter Kacyzne) Glokn, dokumentn fun kunst and gedank in der nayer velt-vendung (Bells, documents on art and thought in the new world message), vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1921), and by himself edited and published the journal Arbeter-kultur un kunst (Workers’ art and culture)—only one issue appeared (Warsaw, December 1922).  In book form he published: Dos teater un der sotsyalizm (Theater and socialism) (Warsaw, 1921), 180 pp., an attempt to treat theatrical issues from a historical materialist point of view.  He was in Bialystok, 1940-1941, under Soviet occupation.  Disappointed, he renounced acceptance of Soviet citizenship.  He was killed in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Z. Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 1; Yidishe shriftn (Lodz) (1946), section on commemoration of the dead.