VOLF SHNAYDER (WOLF SNYDER)

VOLF SHNAYDER (WOLF SNYDER) (October 13, 1899-1986)

            He was born in Kremenits, Volhynia.  He studied Talmud with an itinerant tutor, Tanakh with a teacher, and secular subject matter on his own.  He graduated from high school in Vashlikove (Wasilków).  He studied philology and history at Kiev University.  In 1923 he emigrated to the United States.  In 1929 he graduated from City College of New York, later specializing in American history and pedagogy at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1933 he received a master’s degree there.  He worked as a teacher in the Jewish public schools in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and Detroit, and over the years 1936-1939 at the Jewish teachers’ seminary in New York.  He began writing in 1924 for Di idishe velt (The Jewish world) in Philadelphia.  He contributed pedagogical and literary articles to: Yidishe dertsiung (Jewish education) and from 1941 was its co-editor and Kinder velt (Children’s world); as well as, from time to time, Tsukunft (Future), Svive (Environs), Undzer eygn vort (Our own word) for which he was co-editor from 1976, and Di goldene keyt (The golden chain), among others.  In book form: Silabus in yidisher geshikhte (Syllabus for jewish history) (New York, 1941), 2 parts; Literarishe un historishe eseyen (Literary and historical essays) (New York: Workmen’s Circle. 1984), 245 pp.  He died in Detroit.

Source: Elozer Beyzer, Ven bletler faln (When pages fall) (New York, 1937), pp. 174-75.

Yekhezkl Lifshits

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 531.]