SHLOYME ZITNER (SALOMON ZYTNER)

SHLOYME ZITNER (SALOMON ZYTNER) (October 21, 1904-1986)

            He was born in Bialystok, into a Hassidic home.  He studied in the Bialystok Yeshiva, later on his own.  While still a youth, he joined the left Labor Zionist youth organization.  From 1925 he was living in Uruguay, where he was active in the local division of YIVO.  He began publishing poetry in Dos vort (The word), a weekly newspaper out of Montevideo (1932).  He published stories, poems, and reportage pieces in: Unzer fraynt (Our friend), Folksblat (People’s newspaper), and Literarishe heftn (Literary notebooks)—in Montevideo.  In book form: Der gerangl (The conflict), stories (Montevideo, 1955), 200 pp.; Di mishpokhe un andere dertseylungen (The family and others stories) (Tel Aviv: Nay land, 1969), 253 pp.; Tsvishn vent un andere dertseylungen (Between walls and other stories) (Tel Aviv: Nay land, 1974), 208 pp.  After making aliya to Israel in 1967, he was living in Bat Yam from 1969 where he died.

Sources: Yoyel Gag, in Folksblat (Montevideo) (May 15, 1953; March 4, 1954); Y. Vaynshenker, Boyers un mitboyers fun yidishn yishev in urugvay (Founders and builders of the Jewish community in Uruguay) (Montevideo, 1957), p. 104; Y. Varshavski, in Forverts (New York) (February 22, 1958); Y. Rapaport, in Der shpigl (Buenos Aires) (November-December 1958).

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 260.]