SHAS-ROMAN

SHAS-ROMAN (October 9, 1894-June 18, 1976)

            He was a bibliographer and translator, born Sh. Solomon in Fashkan (Pașcani), Romania.  He received his first education in religious elementary school, later becoming acquainted with Yiddish and Hebrew literature, as well as with German and Romanian.  He lived in 1917 for a short time in Odessa, thereafter settling in Bucharest.  In 1917 he launched a long correspondence concerning the persecutions of the Jews in Romania for Unzer leben (Our life) in Odessa.  From 1920 he published bio-bibliographical articles, translations, and letters in: Biblyothek idishe visenshaft (Library of Jewish scholarship) in Jassy (Iași), edited by Shmuel Shvemer; Leben (Life) in Vilna; Unzer tsayt (Our times) in Kishinev; Arbayter-tsaytung (Workers’ newspaper) in Czernowitz; Veker (Alarm) in Bucharest; Di naye tsaytung (The new newspaper) in Czernowitz; Unzer vort (Our word) in Bucharest (1925, 1939); and Unzer veg (Our way) (1926-1929).  From 1924 he corresponded for Vilner tog (Vilna day), also using such pen names as: Ben-Gole, Ben-Yisroel, Kliger, and Snigur.  He devoted himself to bibliographies of Yiddish literature and the press in Romania.  He assembled and revised Romanian-Yiddish material for Zalmen Reyzen’s Leksikon (Biographical dictionary).  He published a lengthy bibliographical listing, “Di yidishe prese in rumenye, 1854-1926” (The Yiddish press in Romania, 1854-1926), in Filologishe shriftn (Philological writings) III (pp. 525-36); a long work on Yiddish theater in Romania, in Yankev Shatski’s Hundert yor goldfadn (Centenary for [Avrom] Goldfadn) (New York, 1940), pp. 43-63; a long essay entitled “Di ershte yidishe teater-retsenzyes in rumenye” (The first Yiddish theater reviews in Romania), Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO) 15.4.  He translated numerous works from Yiddish into Romanian, including: Sh. An-ski, Der bal-tshuve (The penitent); Sholem Asch, Mentshn un geter (Men and gods); Asch, Got fun nekome (God of vengeance) (Bucharest 1928); Yitskhok Horovits, Dos kol fun di shtume (“The voice of the dumb”) and his one-act play Der shney-mentsh, ven der lerer iz nishto in klas (The snowman, when there is no teacher in the classroom); Dovid-Moyshe Hermalin, Fraye libe (Free love).  He amassed collections of Yiddish folklore, Yiddish epigrams, and translations from Romanian into Yiddish.  He edited Dray, zamlheft far lid un proze (Three, an anthology for poetry and prose) (Bucharest, 1940), 16 pp.; and co-edited Akhtsik yor yidish teater in romanye, 1876-1976 (Eighty years of Yiddish theater in Romania, 1876-1956) (Bucharest, 1956), 33 pp.  He also published a Purim flyer entitled Der homentash (The triangular pastry [eaten on Purim]) (Roman, 1921).  In book form also in Yiddish: Dertseylungen fun amol (Stories from the past) (Bucharest: Kriteryon, 1971), 211 pp.  He died in Bucharest.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; a biography of him in Oyfshtayg (Bucharest) (1964), pp. 416-17.

Berl Cohen