SHAYE YERUSALIMSKI

SHAYE YERUSALIMSKI (1899-November 7, 1955)

            He was born in Uman, Ukraine.  He studied in religious primary school, synagogue study hall, and in a Russian high school.  He survived the 1919-1920 pogroms in Ukraine, and then moved to the United States.  He worked for a time as a Hebrew teacher.  He was active in the Jewish National Labor Alliance.  He published poems and essays in: Di feder (The pen), Fraye arbeter-shtime (Free voice of labor), Der tog (The day), Nyu-yorker vokhnblat (New York weekly newspaper), Shriftn (Writings) edited by Abe Gordin, and Hadoar (The mail)—in New York.  He authored: Di etishe lere fun di tnoim, perek dertseylt (The ethical teachings of the Tannaim, Ethics of the Fathers explained) (New York, 1950), 160 pp.  Aside from Yiddish translations of Pirke avot (Ethics of the fathers) and of Talmudic tractates Avot (Fathers) and Avot derabi natan (The Fathers according to Rabbi Natan), this book included his own considerations of Jewish ethics in light of other religious texts, as well as an essay on the spiritual condition of the Jewish people in the period between Ezra the scribe and the last Tannaim.  He also wrote: Fenster in himl, lider, mesholim un fablen (Darkness in heaven, poems, parables, and fables) (New York, 1950), 163 pp; Yidish lid, lider un poemen (The Jewish poem, poetry) (New York, 1951), 159 pp.  He published as well under the pen name of “S. Dzherom.”  He died in New York.

Sources: Avrom Reyzen, in Di feder (New York) (1949), p. 254; obituary notices in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (November 8, 1955) and Tsukunft (New York) (January 1956).

Khayim Leyb Fuks