NOKHUM (NAHUM) BRIND

NOKHUM (NAHUM) BRIND (1898-November 16, 1976)

            He was born in Medzhybizh (Międzyboż), Podolia.  He began his literary activities in Russian.  Around 1920 he moved to Vienna.  From time to time he acted in Yiddish theater there, and he wrote stories in German.  In 1937 he published in German a book of short stories, entitled Traenen und Laecheln (Tears and laughter) (Vienna: Heinrich Glanz).  Because of the Nazi persecutions in Austria, he left for Paris.  There he began to write in Yiddish, and he published works in the Parisian daily and periodical press.  Together with his wife, Dr. Blume Brind, he published a booklet about children’s education and children’s psychology: Der dertsiung fun undzere kinder (The education of our children) (Paris: Women’s association to aid mother and child, 1937), 40 pp.  In 1940, again with his wife, he published a work about Jewish emigrant life in Paris in Shriftn far psikhologye un pedagogik (Writings on psychology and pedagogy) 2 (Vilna), pp. 283-92.  Shortly before WWII broke out, Maurice Schwartz brought him to New York to perform in the Yiddish Art Theater.  There he published stories in Tsukunft (Future), Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter), Forverts (Forward), and Gerekhtikeyt (Justice), among others.  He died in New York.

Sources: Dr. M. Naygreshl, “Di moderne yidishe literatur in galitsye” (Modern Yiddish literature in Galicia), Fun noentn over (New York: World Jewish Cultural Congress, 1955); “Unzere mitarbeter” (Our contributors), Tsukunft (New York) (June 1943).