SHAYE ZANDBERG

SHAYE ZANDBERG (October 16, 1891-November 17, 1972)

            He was born in Kalish (Kalisz), Poland.  He studied in religious elementary school, yeshiva, and with private tutors.  In his youth he began writing lyrical poetry, to which he adapted melodies.  From 1919 he was living in Belgium.  There he specialized in art photography and was later a photographer for the Belgian press.  He first published his poems in Unzer vort (Our word) in Brussels (1945).  He later placed work in: Arbeter vort (Workers’ word) in Paris; Kinder-zhurnal (Children’s magazine) in New York; and elsewhere.  In addition to his own poems, he translated works from French and Flemish.  A number of his adapted poems from French were published in the anthology, 100 lider (100 poems) (Buenos Aires, 1947).  His books include: Unzer lid (Our poem) (Brussels, 1949), 32 pp.; Der soyne in di moyern (The enemy in the walls), stories (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1963), 190 pp., Hebrew translation by Shmuel Ayzenshtadt, Hasone betokh haḥomot (Tel Aviv: Tekuma, 1966), 198 pp.; Funken in der nakht (Sparks in the night) (Tel Aviv: Oyfkum, 1965), 186 pp.; Klangen (Reverberations) (Tel Aviv: Oyfkum, 1968), 124 pp.; A flash afn vaser (A bottle on the water) (Tel Aviv: Oyfkum, 1971), 212 pp.  He also published under the pen name: Z. Shaye.  When the Nazis occupied Belgium, he organized an illegal Jewish library and, with the aid of the Belgian mailmen, he sent books to Jews in hiding.  He enjoyed special protection from the Belgian king who looked out for him during his life in the underground over the years 1940-1944.  According to Azaria Dobrushke in Brussel, citing Zandberg’s daughter Lili, he was in Israel from 1958.  He died in Brussels.

Sources: M. Zaks, in Haynt (Buenos Aires) (October 3, 1948); Tsukunft (New York) (October 1949).

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 256.]