URYE KATSENELENBOGN

URYE KATSENELENBOGN (1885-late April 1980)

            He was born in Vilna, and he lived for many years in the Lithuanian cities of Birz (Biržai), Shavel (Šiauliai), and Ponevezh (Panevėžys), where he became acquainted with secret Lithuanian circles and their struggle for the revival of their language.  This strongly influenced his literary and community activities.  He wrote about a Lithuanian-Jewish rapprochement in the Yiddish, Russian, and Lithuanian press (Liaudies Zinios [People’s knowledge]).  Over the years 1921-1926, he worked as a Yiddish teacher and school leader, and he wrote about Yiddish from a Yiddishist point of view.  He came to the United States in 1927.  He was a teacher in Chicago and Detroit, and over the years 1929-1937 he was a teacher and manager of the Perets school in Toronto.  He later moved to New York and finally to Miami Beach.  He debuted in print with poetry of folk motifs in Folks-tsaytung (People’s newspaper) in Vilna (1907).  He contributed stories, poems, and articles on the Jewish school and language issues in: Der nayer veg (The new way), Der telegraf (The telegraph), Roman-tsaytung (Fiction newspaper), Der shtrahl (The beam [of light]), Petrograder togblat (Petrograd daily newspaper), Vilner tog (Vilna day), Kovner nayes (Kovno news), Di idishe velt (The Jewish world) in Berlin and Kovno, Forverts (Forward), Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor), Tsukunft (Future), and Idisher zhurnal (Jewish journal).  To campaign on behalf of his ideas for a Jewish-Lithuanian rapprochement, he published (with A. Y. Goldshmidt) the anthology Lita (Lithuania) (Vilna: B. A. Kletskin, 1914), 62 pp., and on his own edited and published Lite (Lithuania) (Kovno-Ponevezh, 1922—2 issues appeared).  He co-edited the massive remembrance volume Lite, vol. 1 (New York, 1951), 1998 columns.  In it he published two lengthy pieces: “Lite in zikorn” (Lithuania in memory) and “Sheyvet litvakes” (The tribe of Lithuanians).  In book form: Kraft un liebe, a drama in 5 akten (Power and love, a drama in five acts) (Vilna, 1904/1905), 61 pp.; Daynes, antologye fun litvishe un letishe folks-lider (Daynes, anthology of Lithuanian and Latvian folksongs), translated and explained (Toronto: Jewish Cultural Society, 1930), 427 pp., second edition (Chicago: L. M. Shteyn, 1936); Reshime fun zeks hundert verter, begegnt tsum oftstn in klas-tsimer (A listing of 600 words, encountered most often in the classroom) (New York, 1939), 16 pp.  He also wrote under the pen names: Boded and M. Urizon.  Katsenelenbogn’s principal work was Daynes.  “By polishing and burnishing the word,” wrote Kh. M. Kayzerman, “…he succeeded in revealing for Yiddish literature the soul of two peoples, among whom segments of our people have lived for centuries.”  He died in Miami Beach.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; B. Gorin, Geshikhte fun yidishn teater (History of Yiddish theater), vol. 2 (New York, 1923), p. 273; Shmuel Niger, in Tog (New York) (September 25, 1932); Kh. M. Kayzerman, Yidishe dikhter in kanade (Yiddish poets in Canada) (Montreal, 1934), pp. 149-52; Yudel Mark, in Yivo-bleter (New York) 25.1 (1945).

Berl Cohen