PINKHES (PINJAS) BIZBERG

PINKHES (PINJAS) BIZBERG (July 20, 1898-December 2, 1969)

     Born in Zgerzh (Zgierz), Poland, he attended religious elementary school and yeshivas.  In 1918 he left for Germany.  He graduated from a senior high school course in Sollenberg, Thuringia, and went on to study at the universities of Kiel and Bonn.  In 1923 he received a diploma in agronomy.  He worked in his field in Germany, Denmark, and France.  In 1927 he engaged with the Jewish Colonization Association to work as an agronomist with the Argentinian Jewish colonies.  He became the director of the Jewish Agrarian Bank.  He was a cofounder of a colony near Buenos Aires and director of the Jewish school.  His first published work appeared after WWII with correspondence pieces from Germany in Haynt (Today) in Warsaw.  In Argentina, he published stories and articles in Yidishe tsaytung (Jewish newspaper), Der shpigl (The mirror), Dos naye lebn) (The new life), Oyfsnay (Afresh), Penemer un penemlekh (Appearances, big and small), and Kolonist kooperator (Colonial cooperative).  For a year he was editor of Naye tsayt (New times), organ of Poale-Tsiyon in Buenos Aires; for three years he served on the editorial board of Yidishe tsaytung; and a member of the editorial collective of Argentiner yivo-shriftn (Argentine writings of YIVO); a contributing editor of Dertsiungs-problemen (Educational issues); a member of the editorial board of Ineynem (Altogether), an anthology of the cultural congress in Buenos Aires; and an editor of Dos naye vort (The new word).  Among his books: Naye heymen, dertseylungen un noveln (New homes, stories and novellas (Buenos Aires, 1939), 278 pp.; Migel Sakharov (Miguel Sakharov) (Buenos Aires, 1940), 280 pp.; Shabes yontevdike yidn, dos gezang fun a dor (Saturday and holiday Jews, the song of a generation) (Buenos Aires, 1940), 180 pp.  He also participated in a monograph in Dr. yarkhi-bukh, lekoved dem ondenk fun dr. noyekh yarkhi, fertsik yor nokh zayn ptire (Dr. Yarchi book, in honor of the memory of Dr. Noah Yarchi, forty years after his death) (Buenos Aires, 1943), 162 pp.; Leyvi-yitskhok barditshever (Levi-Yitzchak of Berdichev) (Buenos Aires, 1952), 93 pp.; Khane senesh, a yidishe heldin (Hannah Szenes, a Jewish heroine), staged in Buenos Aires in June 1948.  In 1950 he staged in Buenos Aires Ven velder brenen (When forests burn) and a dramatization of Yehuda Elberg’s story Agent 838.  In 1948 he received the Kasner Prize for the drama, Nakht in nirenberger geto (Night in the Nuremburg ghetto).  He was living from 1953 in Santiago, Chile, and made aliya to Israel in 1956.  He died in Jerusalem.

Sources: Y. Botoshanski, Mame-yidish (Mother Yiddish) (Buenos Aires, 1949), pp. 240-41; Sh. Rozhanski, Dos yidishe gedrukte vort un teater in argentine (The published Yiddish word and theater in Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1941); Antologye fun der yidisher literatur in argentine (Anthology of Yiddish literature from Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1944), pp. 65-81.

[Addition information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 80.]