SHLOYME SHNAYDER

SHLOYME SHNAYDER (August 30, 1897-January 28, 1936)

            He was a poet, born in Dinivits (Dynivtsi), Podolia.  He attended religious elementary school until age eleven, later a Russian high school in Kamenets-Podolsk (Kamianets-Podilskyi).  In 1914 he moved to Canada.  For five years he wandered throughout the United States.  From late 1919 to 1924, he lived in Montreal; he spent 1924-1927 in New York and thereafter in Los Angeles.  He worked in all these places as a teacher in schools run by the Farband (Labor Zionist Order) or the Sholem-Aleichem Folks Institute.  He debuted in print in 1921 with poems in Nyuansn (Nuances) in Montreal.  He went on to published poetry, stories, children’s tales, articles, and translations in: Keneder odler (Canadian eagle), Kanader vokhnblat (Canadian weekly newspaper), the journal Montreol (Montreal), Idisher zhurnal (Jewish journal) in Toronto, E. Almi’s Der kval (The source), Epokhe (Epoch), Royerd (Raw earth) of which he co-edited several issues, Arbayt (Labor); Oyfkum (Arise), Unzer bukh (Our book), and Kinder-zhurnal (Children’s magazine)—in New York; Idisher firer (Jewish leader), and Pasifik (Pacific) in which he published a bibliography of the Yiddish press in California (Los Angeles) 4 (1929); among others.  Deserving mention among Shnayder’s stories is the cycle Tslomim (Crosses) which appeared in Keneder odler and was included in Nakhmen Mayzil’s Amerike in yidishn vort (America in the Yiddish word) (New York, 1955).  His book-length works include: Shpilerayen: oyfgabn, retenishn, shpiln un kuntsn (Games: problems, riddles, games, and tricks) (New York: Matones, 1928), 128 pp.—used as a textbook; his children’s plays: Grins af shvues (Vegetables on Shavuot) (Vilna: Naye yidishe folksshul, 1929), 20 pp.; Khanike-gelt (Hanukkah money) (Vilna: Naye yidishe folksshul, 1931), 24 pp.; Shalakhmones (Gifts exchanged on Purim) (Vilna: Naye yidishe folksshul, 1931), 28 pp.  His Passover play Repetitsye (Repetition) was published in Kinder-zhurnal in New York (March 1928).  His translations: Knut Hamsun, Di brokhe fun der erd (The blessing of the earth [original: Markens grøde (Growth of the soil)]) (Warsaw: Kultur-lige, 1926), 484 pp.; Hamsun, Kinder fun der tsayt (Children of the time [original: Børn av tiden]) (New York: Grohar un stodolski, 1926), 302 pp.  He died in Los Angeles.

Sources: Zalmen reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 6 (Mexico City, 1969); Khanaye-Meyer Kayzerman, Yidishe dikhter in kanade (Yiddish poets in Canada) (Montreal, 1934), pp. 70-71; obituary in Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) 9 (1936).

Khayim Leyb Fuks