ZALMEN ROZENTAL

ZALMEN ROZENTAL (1892-March 19, 1959)

            He was a Hebrew and Yiddish folk poet, children’s writer, and folklorist, born in Telenesht (Telenesti), Bessarabia.  He came from a poor, well-heeled family.  He studied in religious elementary school until age ten.  He would often travel along with visits to a village, identify the local nature, the peasants, and the local settlers, and this later became the main motif of his fictional work.  In 1914 he founded a Jewish school in Telenesti.  He graduated from a high school course of study as an external student in Odessa and later studied in university.  From 1919 he was living in Kishinev.  In 1940 he was banished to Arkhangelsk for fourteen years for his many years of work on behalf of Labor Zionism.  He returned broken and ill in 1955 to Kishinev.  Shiye-Khone Rabnitski befriended him and published his first work, under the pen name Sh. Ashkenazi, “Monolog fun a shviger” (Monologue of a mother-in-law), in Mortkhe Spektor’s Unzer leben (Our life) in Warsaw.  From time to time he would publish short impressions and features in the Odessa daily newspaper Gut morgen (Good morning), using the pen name Yidl Tshad, and poetry in Der shtrahl (The beam [of light]) in Buenos Aires (1913-1914).  In 1917 he became a regular contributor to the daily Dos naye leben (The new life), edited by Aleksander Khashin.  In it he placed a series of stories and idylls.  In 1919 he wrote a string of children’s stories.  From 1926 he was publishing numerous short stories and novellas of Bessarabian life in the Romanian Yiddish press, as well as in: Tsukunft (Future), Di velt (The world) in Berlin, Tog (Day), Dos idishe folk (The Jewish people), Ilustrirte vokh (Illustrated week), Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves), Altnayland (Old-new land), and Erets-yisroel-tsaytung (Newspaper of the land of Israel), among others.  He edited: the semi-weekly newspaper Unzer vort (Our word) in Odessa (1919); the daily Der id (The Jew) in Kishinev (May 1920-June 1922); and Unzer tsayt (Our time) (1922-1938, with interruptions) which was at that time the only Yiddish newspaper in Romania.  From 1925 he began publishing the monthly Farn idishn kind (For the Jewish child) in Kishinev.  He did research on Jewish ethnography and folklore, collect some 300 Yiddish folksongs, and himself penned over 100 songs in a popular vein.  A portion of them were sung in schools and among the people, a number of them as anonymous folksongs, such as, for example: “S’iz tsebrokhn unzer dekhl” (The roof’s broken), in Lazar Vayner’s Khorn zingen (Songs for chorus) (New York, 1940); and “Bay dem shtetl shteyt a shtibl” (A little synagogue in the town), in Lomir zingen (Let’s sing) (New York, 1956).  His work also appeared in Shimshon Meltser’s Al naharot (By the rivers).  In book form: Lidelakh (Short poems) (Odessa: Blimelakh, 1918), 15 pp.; Unter elyes boym, mayselakh far kinder (Under Elijah’s tree, tales for children) (Odessa: Naye leben, 1919), 12 pp.; Dos vunder tsigl (The wonder goat) (Odessa Naye leben, 1919), 12 pp.; Muzik (Music) (Odessa Naye leben, 1919), 20 pp.; Myahu (Odessa: Naye leben, 1919), 12 pp.; Nini un nina (Nini and Nina) (Odessa: Naye leben, 1919), 12 pp.; Dos tsigele bam vigele (The little goat by the little crib) (Odessa: Naye leben, 1919), 12 pp.; Der kretshmer (The innkeeper) (Odessa: Naye leben, 1919), 8 pp.; Mayselakh far kinder (Tales for children) (Odessa: Naye leben, 1919), 88 pp.; Fun mayn heym, noveln (From my housed, novellas) (Kishinev: S. Rozenshtroykh, 1936), 240 pp.; Unzer land, reportazhn (Our land, reportage pieces) (Kishinev, 1938), 223 pp.  He also wrote for numerous Hebrew serials.  In Hebrew he published a volume of stories entitled Anashim veregavim, sipurim (People and patches of earth, stories) (Tel Aviv, 1948/1949), 191 pp., and a translation (by Yitsḥak Spivak) of his children’s stories entitled Gedi hapelaot, sipurim veagadot (The goat of wonders, stories) (Tel Aviv: Yavne, 1960), 164 pp.  He also used such pseudonym as: Z. Rozen, Feter Meyer, Ben Yisroel, and BENO.  Rozental’s “stories of Bessarabia,” wrote Sholyme Bikl, “breathe…with a love of nature, the shepherd’s whistle, the Moldavian peasant, and the broad, lonesome steppes…and with a nostalgia for the land and the Bible.”  He died in Telenesti.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; Getzel Kressel, Leksikon hasifrut haivrit (Handbook of Hebrew literature), vol. 2 (Merḥavya, 1967); Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), see index; Shloyme Bikl, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (April 3, 1955); B. Y. Mikhali, in Al adamat besarabiya (On the soil of Bessarabia), vol. 1 (Tel Aviv, 1958/1959), pp. 181-82, 187-88; Y. Botoshanski, in Di prese (Buenos Aires) (June 10, 1959); Ashrat (Jerusalem) 2 (1959/1960); Yeda am (Tel Aviv) 30 (1965); Shmuel Shapiro, Asher leoram halakhti (In whose light I went) (Tel Aviv, 1965/1966), pp. 211-13; A. Forsher, in Forverts (New York) (December 10, 1972); Sovetish heymland (Moscow) 3 (1972); Natan Mark, Sifrut yidish beromanya (Yiddish literature in Romania) (Tel Aviv, 1973), see index; Tsuzamen (Tel Aviv) (1974).

Berl Cohen