BEN-TSIEN KIT

BEN-TSIEN KIT (d. 1942)

            He was born in Vilna.  He began journalistic work for Vilna’s daily newspaper Der fraynd (The friend).  He later worked for Di tsayt (The times).  He wrote theater criticism for it, and he published many of his own and translations of others’ poetry from Russian, Polish, and Hebrew.  He wrote several songs (with music by A. Lerner and Ber Bagon) for Grininke beymelekh (Little green trees) in Vilna in 1937.  He translated Roman Brandstaetter’s Di tragedye fun yulyan klyatshko (The tragedy of Julian Klaczki [original: Tragedie Juliana Klaczki] serially in Di tsayt (February-August 1935).  He was also an actor and a painter whose work was never exhibited.  He died in Lide (Lida), Byelorussia.

Sources: Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 5 (Mexico City, 1966); Shmerke Katsherginski, Khurbn vilne (The Holocaust in Vilna) (New York, 1947), p. 207; Yoysef Sandel, Umgekumene yidishe kinstler in poyln (Murdered Jewish artists in Poland) (Warsaw: Yidish bukh, 1957), p. 200.

Leyzer Ran