MOYSHE
ZAYFERT (ZEIFERT, ZEYFERT) (May 2, 1851[1]-February 7, 1922)
He was born in Vilkomir (Ukmergė), Kovno district,
Lithuania. He was the son of a Vilna
barber-surgeon, a follower of the Jewish Enlightenment. He studied in religious elementary school and
with private tutors, and with his father’s library he acquainted himself with
Enlightenment books. At age ten he moved
with his parents to Shverzne, a town near the uppermost reaches of the Nieman
River; there he continued his studies of Talmud and read the Hebrew newspapers
to which his father would subscribe. At
age thirteen he published his first correspondence piece in Hakarmel (The garden-land), and later he
published popular scientific articles in Y. M. Vohlman’s Hakokhavim (The stars), in Hamelits
(The advocate) and Hakarmel, while
preparing to study at university, but following his father’s wish, he went
instead to the Volozhin Yeshiva, and from there he was expelled for reading
heretical writings. In 1873 he passed
the barber-surgeon examination in Kovno, and after his father’s death he became
a barber-surgeon in Shverzne and later in Stoybts (Stolbtsy), Minsk district, while at the same time publishing
articles, feature pieces, and stories in Rodkinson’s Hakol (The voice) and Asefat ḥakhamim
(Assembly of wise men), in Haor (The
light) and Hamagid (The preacher); he
also wrote for the Russian Jewish Nedel׳naia khronika voskhoda
(Weekly chronicle of the east), Russkii
evrei (Russian Jewry), and Razsviet
(Dawn). In 1886 he made his way to the
United States and soon began to write in Yiddish, became a contributor to New
York Yiddish weeklies, and served as a correspondent for the weekly publication
Voskhod (Sunrise), in which, among
other items, he published a long article on the Yiddish theater in New York,
but inasmuch as earnings for this sort of writing were meager, he took to
writing plays for the Yiddish stage. His
first theatrical piece, Di tsvey
grinhorns, oder der shloser (The two greenhorns, or the locksmith)—a realistic
drama drawn from working class life—failed, and Zayfert then proceeded to write
historical operettas, such as: Miryam
hakhashmenis (Miriam the Hasmonean), Ger
tsedek (The righteous convert), Shoymer
yisroel (Guardian of Israel), and Malkes
shabes (The Sabbath queen), among others.
He wrote forty-seven plays over the course of the fifteen years that he
was connected with the Yiddish theater (he wrote the first text of the popular operetta
Dos pintele yid [The quintessence of
Jewish identity] which Boris Tomashevsky later adapted; it appeared under
Tomashevsky’s name). As he did not hold
playwriting in especially high esteem, he ultimately abandoned it and became a
novelist. While he was still in Russia,
he had vied to create a more realistic Jewish novel than those written by
Shomer (Nokhum Meyer Shaykevitch) and Ozer Bloshteyn. His first novels were published in Vilna in
the 1880s. His first novel in America, Der turem fun bovl (The tower of Babel),
was published in Yidishes tageblat (Jewish
daily newspaper), to which he was a regular contributor over the course of two
decades and in which he published the great majority of his sixty-four novels;
among the most popular of them: Zushe
poulanker (Zushe Poulanker), Barg
arop (Decline), and Vi nyu-york veynt
un lakht (How New York cries and laughs).
He also composed a great number of sketches, stories, feature pieces, humorous
sketches, and articles, mostly on social themes, published in a variety of
Yiddish-language publications, among them: Nyu-yokrer
yidishe folks-tsaytung (New York Jewish people’s newspaper), edited by A.
Braslavski and M. Mints, and Fraye
arbeter-shtime (Free voice of labor)—both in New York; Varshever yudisher familyen-kalendar (Warsaw Jewish family
calendar); Der yud (The Jew); and
Frishman’s Hador (The
generation). In the anthology Di idishe bine (The Yiddish stage) in
New York (1897), he wrote a long essay (47 pp.) entitled “Di geshikhte fun dem
yudishn teater” (The history of the Yiddish theater), which was also published
as a separate pamphlet. In addition he
published memoirs about the Vilna Enlightenment figures and Avraham Mapu in Hatoran (The duty officer) and in the
annual Luaḥ aḥiever. In book form he
published: Aave bataynugim oder blumen un
derner (Love of pleasures or flowers and thorns), a novel; Itele un gitele, roman oys dem idishn lebn
in lite (Itele and Gitele, a novel drawn from Jewish life in Lithuania)
(Vilna, 1891), 219 pp.; Tsvishn libe un
ere, roman oys dem idishn lebn in rusland (Between love and honor, a novel
drawn from Jewish life in Russia) (Vilna, 1888), 140 pp.—all published by the
house of Rom in Vilna. In New York he
published with the Hebrew Publishing Company: Vikhne dvoshe di shadkhnte (Vikhne Dvoshe, the matchmaker), 64 pp.;
Megiles drayfus (The scroll of
Dreyfus), 85 pp.; A shpatsir durkh dem gehenem
(A walk through hell), 84 pp.; Nyu-york
vi es lakht un veynt, a roman fun idishn lebn (New York, how it laughs and
cries, a novel of Jewish life), 206 pp.; Der
prints als detektiv (The prince as detective), 416 pp.; Der litvisher kenig fun di shnorers (The
Lithuanian king of the beggars), 197 pp.; Tkhies-hameysim
(Resurrection of the dead), 27 pp.; Baym
tir fun gan-eydn (By the gates of the Garden of Eden), 64 pp.; Der blutiker tseylem, original roman oys dem
idishn lebn (The bloody cross, original novel drawn from Jewish life), 84
pp.; A gast fun yener velt, a
humoristishe ertseylung (A guest from the other world, a humorous story),
48 pp.; Kuba oder di shpanishe
inkvizitsyon fun den 19th yorhundert, a historisher roman (Cuba
or the Spanish inquisitions of the nineteenth century, a historical novel), 3
vols., 1085 pp.; and Graf pototski, oder
der ger tsedek, a historisher roman (Graf Potocki or the righteous convert,
a historical novel), 48 pp.; among others.
He also translated Paolo Mantegazza’s Froyen fun mayn tsayt (Women of my time [original: Le donne del mi tempo]) and Di kunst a man oystsuklaybn (The art of
selecting a husband [original: L’arte di
prender marioto]), as well as other European writers. He died in New York.
Sources:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1, with
a bibliography; Z. Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon
fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 1, with a
bibliography; Hadoar (New York)
(February 8, 1922); E. Shulman, in Yorbukh
fun amopteyl (Annual from the American branch [of YIVO]),
vol. 1 (New York, 1938); Shulman, Geshikhte fun der yidisher
literatur in amerike (History of Yiddish literature in America) (New York,
1943); N. Zalovits, in Forverts (New
York) (August 13, 1939); Kalmen Marmor, Der onhoyb fun der yidisher
literatur in amerike (The beginning of Yiddish literature in America) (New
York, 1944); Shmuel Niger, in Tsukunft
(New York) (August 1940); Moyshe Shtarkman (M. Khizkuni), in Hadoar (Sivan 4 [= May 23], 1947);
Shtarkman, in Metsuda 7 (London, 1954);
Sh. Perlmuter, Yidishe dramaturgn un teater-kompozitorn (Yiddish
playwrights and theatrical composers) (New York, 1952); Y. Mestl, 70 yor
teater-repertuar (Seventy years of theater repertoire) (New York, 1954); Amerike
in yidishn vort (America in the Yiddish word), an anthology (New York,
1955).
Zaynvl Diamant
[1] According to Ben-Tsien Ayzenshtadt, Ḥakhme yisrael beamerika (Wise Jewish men in the United States) (New York,
1903), he was born on April 12, 1850; according to Kalmen Marmor, in Almanakh, it was 1845.
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