LYUBA ZILBERBLAT-ZAKHAYM (LUBA SILBERBLATT)

LYUBA ZILBERBLAT-ZAKHAYM (LUBA SILBERBLATT) (b. August 17, 1904)

            She was born in Luna Volya, Grodno district, Russian Poland, into a rabbinical family.  She spent a portion of her childhood with her grandfather, the Viliker rabbi, Tivush, where the deep religious environment left an impression on her spirit.  She studied Tanakh, Hebrew, and later Russian, secular subjects, and music.  She worked as a teacher and later a nurse, 1914-1917.  In 1920 she studied in a nursing school in Berlin.  In 1924 she made her way to Mexico, and spent 1934-1937 in Havana, Cuba.  She began writing poetry in 1921.  Her book Laydn, poemen un lider (Suffering, poetry) was published in Havana in 1936 (70 pp.).  Six poems translated by her into Spanish appeared in the journal El Artista (The artist) in October 1935 and Hollywood (January 1936) in Havana.  She was active in both Yiddish and Spanish theater.  She appeared on stage with Clara Jung, Shayngold, and others.  She wrote and staged two plays: Dem sheynkers tokhter (The saloonkeeper’s daughter), a melodrama in four acts, performed in Havana in July 1935; and Dos yidishe kind (The Jewish child), a melodrama in two acts and five scenes, staged in Havana in Yiddish (February 1935) and in Spanish (December 1936 and February 1937).  From 1937 on, she was living in Veracruz, Mexico.

Sources: El País (Havana) (November 1936); El Artista (Havana) (August 7 and 20, 1935; July 16, November 29, and December 6, 1936); Diario de la Marina (Havanba) (June 12, 1936); L. Ran, ed., Hemshekh af kubaner erd (Continuation on Cuban soil) (Havana, 1951).

Leyzer Ran