MARCOS REGALSKI

MARCOS REGALSKI (June 15, 1885-September 28, 1959)

            He was journalist, born Yitskhok Berlin in Moscow.  He attended a Warsaw high school and audited lectures on philosophy and literature at the University of Berlin.  He lived in Warsaw and in 1905 he was in Zhitomir.  Over the years 1906-1907 he was in Kovno, then several years in Berlin, a short time in Copenhagen, and from 1914 in New York.  From 1918 until his death he was in Buenos Aires.  He belonged to the Zionist socialist party, later switching to the Labor Zionists.  For a time, he was among the journalistic and community leaders in Argentina.  He began writing for illegal Zionist socialist publications.  From 1909 he was placing work in: Warsaw’s Fraynd (Friend) and Haynt (Today), Idishe shtime (Jewish voice) in Riga, Di tribune (The tribune) in Copenhagen (1915-1916), Unzer vort (Our word) in New York-Chicago (1917-1918), and Di idishe emigratsye (The Jewish emigration) in Berlin (1928).  He also published in: Avrom Reyzen’s Eyropeyishe literatur (European literature); and Idishe tsaytung (Jewish newspaper), jubilee volume (Buenos Aires, 1940).  His work also appeared in V. Bresler, Antologye fun der yidisher literatur in argentine (Anthology of Jewish literature in Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1944).  For a short time, he served as editor of Dos folk (The people) in Copenhagen (1914) and of the Labor Zionist Di naye tsayt (The new times) (1918-1923).  From 1922 he was a regular contributor to Idishe tsaytung in Buenos Aires.  He translated: Arthur Schnitzler, Der veg tsu frayhayt, roman (The path to freedom, a novel [original: Der Weg ins Freie (The road into the open)]) (New York, 1918), 2 vols., vol. 2 with Y. Garnitski.  He also wrote for Russian Jewish periodicals.  His writings included: Vos ikh hob gezen in erets-yisroel (What I saw in the land of Israel) (Buenos Aires: Avodah, 1936), 159 pp.; Tsvishn beyde velt-milkhomes (Between the two world wars) (Buenos Aires: Yoyvl-komitet, 1945), 703 pp.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; “Obituary,” in Davke (Buenos Aires) 39 (1959); Yankev Botoshanski, in Di prese (Buenos Aires) (October 29, 1960); Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York).

Yekhezkl Lifshits