SHEVE-ITE TSUKER (SHEVA ZUCKER)

SHEVE-ITE TSUKER (SHEVA ZUCKER) (b. December 24, 1951)

            She was born in Winnipeg.  She graduated from the Y. L. Peretz School, studied as an undergraduate at the University of Winnipeg, Queens College.  At the same time, she graduated from the Jewish Teachers’ Seminary (Herzliah) in New York.  She received her master’s degree in Yiddish Language, Literature and Folklore from Columbia University and her PhD in Comparative Literature with a concentration in Yiddish from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, writing her dissertation under Irving Howe.  She was active in Yugntruf (Youth for Yiddish).  She has published articles, reportage pieces, and humorous sketches in: Yugntruf, Afn shvel (At the threshold), and Yidishe kultur (Jewish culture) in New York; Dos naye yidishe vort (The new Yiddish word) in Winnipeg; Keneder odler(Canadian eagle) in Montreal; Letste nayes (Latest news) in Tel Aviv; Unzer shtime (Our voice) in Paris; and Dos fraye vort (The free word) in Buenos Aires; among others.  She is now the editor-in-chief of Afn shvel and Executive Director of the League for Yiddish.  She is the author of the textbooks Yiddish: An Introduction to the Language, Literature & Culture, vols. 1 and II, published by the Workmen’s Circle.  Her research and translations focus mostly on women in Yiddish literature.  She was, for several years, the Translation Editor of the Pakn Treger, the magazine of the National Yiddish Book Center. Over the years, 2012-2014, she published a blog, “Candles of Song: Yiddish Poems about Mothers.”  A Yiddish written interview about her life and work can be found at http://www.gazetaeao.ru/44707-2/ and an oral interview at https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/collections/oral-histories/interviews/woh-fi-0000459/sheva-zucker-2013.

Sources: Khayim Leyb Fuks, Hundert yor yidishe un hebreishe literatur in kanade (A century of Yiddish and Hebrew literature in Canada) (Montreal, 1980); autobiographical input.

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), cols. 458-59.