SHEFTL ZAK

SHEFTL ZAK (January 7, 1907, July 25, 1981)

            He was born in Grodno, Russian Poland.  Until WWII he worked as a Yiddish actor in Poland.  He spent 1940-1946 in Soviet Russia, and thereafter until 1948 he returned to Poland where he played in Yiddish theater in Lower Silesia.  In 1951 he moved to the United States and worked as a Yiddish actor in New York.  He wrote articles on theater for: Dos naye lebn (The new life) in Bialystok; Grodner moment (Grodno moment) and Dos naye lebn in Lodz; Pinsker shtime (Voice of Pinsk) and Niderslezye (Lower Silesia) in Poland; and Naye prese (New press) in Paris; among others.  He adapted and translated plays from Polish, Russia, and German, plays that were staged in Yiddish theaters in Poland.  From Hebrew he translated Di ershte shvalb (The first swallow) by Y. Yush, a comedy in three acts; it was staged in New York in “Unzer teater” (Our theater), of which he was a cofounder.  He died in New York.

Sources: Z. Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 1; Y. Turkov-Grudberg, Yidish teater in poyln (Yiddish theater in Poland) (Warsaw, 1951), pp. 154-55; Yonas Turkov, Farloshene shtern (Extinguished stars), vol. 2 (Buenos Aires, 1953), see index.