MOYSHE-ARN RAFALSKI (MIKHAIL PADAYEVICH) (April 15,
1889-1937)
He was
born in Kiev. He attended religious
elementary school, later proceeding to a school for painting and at age
nineteen a drama school. He acted in
Russian theater in Kiev and in other cities.
Under the influence of Ezra Korman and Dovid Bergelson, he switched to
Yiddish. In 1918 he founded the first Yiddish
theater in Ukraine and later the Yiddish state theater of Byelorussia, for
which he produced plays by Sholem-Aleichem, Y. L. Perets, Arn Kushnirov, Moyshe
Kulbak, Dovid Bergelson, and others. He
was arrested in 1937 and died in a concentration camp. He debuted in print in 1910 with a poem in Kiyever vort (Kievan word). He published articles on theater in Minsk’s Oktyabr (October) and Shtern (Star). He edited Zamlung
far dramkrayzn (Collection for drama circles) (Minsk: State Publ., 1936),
176 pp. In book form: the play Kheyder (Religious elementary school),
dramatized following Sholem-Aleichem, Mendele, and Y. Linetski (Minsk: Shtern,
1926), 21 pp.
Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications
in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), index; Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) 10 (1927); Y. Gutkevitsh, Af ale teg fun a gants yor (On every day
of a full year) (Warsaw: Yidish-bukh, 1966), p. 134.
Ruvn Goldberg
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