BORIS KADER

BORIS KADER (July 9, 1882-January 27, 1958)

            He was a Russian Jewish playwright, born in Aniksht (Anyksciai), Lithuania.  He received a traditional Jewish education.  In 1907 he graduated from a Russian high school and later in law from St. Petersburg University.  He lived in Kavkaz, the years 1925-1937 in Germany, and in 1937 he moved to Chicago where he worked as a librarian at the College for Jewish Studies.  He wrote mostly in Russian, as well as in German and English.  In Yiddish he published articles on Yiddish theater in Kavkazer vokhnblat (Kavkaz weekly newspaper) and Idisher vokhenblat (Jewish weekly newspaper), and later literary works in American Jewish periodicals.  In book form: Laydende neshomes, a drame in fir aktn (Suffering souls, a drama in four acts) (Baku: Aztsendruk, 1921), 40 pp., performed in Baku under the title Dervakhung, a drame in dray aktn fun idishen leben in natsi-daytshland (Awakening, a drama in three acts drawn from Jewish life in Nazi Germany) (Chicago: Arbeter velt, 1939), 108 pp., second edition (1941); Elozer atlas, zayn leben, zayn shafen, zayn kamf (Elazar Atlas, his life, his works, his struggle) (New York, 1949), 12 pp.  He died in Chicago.

Source: Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 6 (Mexico City, 1969).

Berl Cohen