SHLOYME SHVAYTSER (SHLOMO SCHWEIZER)

SHLOYME SHVAYTSER (SHLOMO SCHWEIZER) (November 21, 1903-2002?)

            He was born in Warsaw.  He attended religious elementary school and a secular high school, and he studied law in Warsaw and Geneva.  From 1924 he was living in France and Switzerland.  He was active with the right Labor Zionists, later with the left.  From 1965 he was living in Israel.  He published articles, reviews, essays on writers, and translations in: Moment (Moment) and Unzer ekspres (Our express) in Warsaw; Unzer kiem (Our existence) and Unzer vort (Our word) in Paris; Nayvelt (New world) and Di goldene keyt (The golden chain) in Tel Aviv; and elsewhere.  During WWII he co-edited the illegal Parisian organ of Labor Zionism: Arbeter vort (Laborers’ word), produced hectographically.  He was a regular contributor and from 1968 the editor of Folksblat (People’s newspaper) in Tel Aviv (initially a weekly, later biweekly, and from 1968 monthly).  He also placed work in: Almanakh (Almanac) (Paris, 1955, 1960); Unzer veg in boy un kamf, tsen yor medines yisroel (Our pathway in construction and struggle, ten years of the state of Israel) (Tel Aviv, 1958); Seyfer zerubavl (Volume for Zerubavl) (Tel Aviv, 1961).  He published a longer work: Dos yidishe kultur-lebn in poyln tsvishn beyde velt-milkhomes (Jewish cultural life in Poland between the two world wars) (Tel Aviv, 1967), 98 pp., offprint from Yorbukh (Yearbook) of the World Federation of Polish Jewry, vol. 2.  And he edited: Shures poyle-tsien, portretn (Ranks of Labor Zionism, portraits) (Tel Aviv: Pewrets Publ., 1981), 648 pp.

Sources: Yankev Zerubavl, Geshtaltn (Images) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1967), pp. 247-51; Pinkhes-Leyzer Goldman, In gang mit der tsayt (With the passage of time) (Tel Aviv: Peretz Publ., 1973); Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York)

Ruvn Goldberg

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 519.]