YOYSEF VOL

YOYSEF VOL (b. 1892)

            He was born in Ekaterinslav, Ukraine.  In 1905 he moved to the United States, became a close disciple of Dr. Chaim Zhitlowsky, and together they propagandized the notion of a school in Yiddish.  He was one of the first teachers in the schools of the Workmen’s Circle and Sholem-Aleykhem Folk-Institute.  For a time he was director of the Sholem-Aleykhem Middle School in New York, of the Yiddish supplementary schools in Chicago, and similar ventures.  He published children’s poetry, stories, and translations from Russian, Hebrew, and English in: Kinder zhurnal (Children’s magazine), Kinder tsaytung (Children’s newspaper), and elsewhere.  He also placed pieces in Shulblat (School newspaper) and Di shtime (The voice)—both publications of the Sholem-Aleykhem middle school—in New York; edited Der londrimat (The laundromat) in New York (1925-1926) for which he wrote the great majority of text; and published the reader Dos ershte bukh (The first book) (New York, 1920), 93 pp., for which he contributed original items and translated others from Russian, German, and English—a second, improved edition with illustrations by A. Abramovitsh and “Lola” was published in New York in 1921.  From late 1958 he had withdrawn from active work.  He was last living in Hartford, Connecticut.

Source: Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), see index.