MIKHL FELZENBAUM

MIKHL FELZENBAUM (b. 1951)

            A poet, prose writer, and dramatist, he was born in the town of Vasilkov (Vasylkiv), Kiev district, Ukraine.  He studied in a Russian school and at an art studio.  He mastered Yiddish on his own.  Until 1968 he was living in Floresht (Florești), Bessarabia.  He graduated from the department of theatrical direction at the state institute for culture in Leningrad.  Until 1986 he worked as a painter, porter, stonemason, and musician at Jewish weddings.  He was the artistic director of the local Jewish theater studio “Menoyre” (Menorah) in Belz.  From 1986 he was a lecturer at the Belz pedagogical institute.  In 1991 he made aliya to the state of Israel.  He debuted in print with poems and stories in Sovetish heymland (Soviet homeland), and in 1992 he published his first book in Tel Aviv.  He worked successfully in the field of playwriting.  His work has been translated into Hebrew, Russian, Spanish, and German.  He was the 1989 winner of the Kubi Vohl Prize, given by the association of Yiddish writers and journalists in Israel, the 1995 Hershl Segal Prize, and the 1999 Dovid Hofshteyn Prize.  His books include: Es kumt der tog (Day arrives) (Jerusalem, 1992), 80 pp.; A libe-regn (Rain of love) (Tel Aviv, 1994), 31 pp.; Der nakht malekh (The night angel) (Tel Aviv, 1996), 227 pp.; Un itst ikh bin dayn nign (And now you mock me) (Tel Aviv, 1998), 55 pp.; Shabesdike shvebelekh, roman (Sabbath matches, a novel) (Tel Aviv, 2004), 237 pp.; A shotn baym fenster (A shadow by the winder) (Tel Aviv, 2015), 174 pp.

Chaim Beider, Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc., 2011), pp. 294-95.