DOVID BRIDZHER (DAVID BRIDGER)

DOVID BRIDZHER (DAVID BRIDGER) (December 15, 1907-June 22, 1967)

            He was born in Markulesht’, Bessarabia.  He studied in religious primary school and in a secular high school.  In 1930 he was a teacher in Otaki (Ataki) [Moldova] in a Tarbut elementary school.  In 1933 he emigrated to the United States, where he worked as a teacher in schools run by the Jewish National Workers Alliance, the Workmen’s Circle, and the Sholem-Aleykhem Folk Institute.  He studied at universities in Akron, Ohio and Buffalo, New York; and he received a master’s degree in education.  He first published in 1943 in Kinder-zhurnal (Children’s journal) with children’s stories.  He subsequently published children’s stories, children’s plays, poems, and articles on pedagogical themes in: Kinder-tsaytung (Children’s newspaper), Kultur un dertsiung (Culture and education), Yidisher kemfer (Jewish fighter), Tsukunft (Future), Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO), Pedagogisher byuletin (Pedagogical bulletin), and Bleter far yidisher dertsiung (Pages on Jewish education).  Among his books: Der onheyber (The beginner) (New York, 1947), 141 pp.; Genitungen in yidisher gramatik (Exercises in Yiddish grammar) (New York, 1947); Vokabular farn onheyber-klas in der amerikaner yidisher shul (Vocabulary for the beginning class in the American Yiddish school), together with Yisroel Shteynboym and Yudel Mark (New York, 1944), 72 pp.; Khane senesh un andere dertseylungen (Hannah Szenes and other stories) (Mexico City: Yidish shul, 1960), 63 pp.; and he also published textbooks for Hebrew in elementary schools.  From 1948 he served as a consultant with the Bureau for Jewish Education in Los Angeles.  In 1952 he received his doctorate from the University of California.  He was a cofounder of the Jewish Children’s Theater in Los Angeles and staged the play Sloyme hameylekh un di bin (King Solomon and the bee [based on a Bialik story]).  He was living in Los Angeles until his death.

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 119.]