YOYSEF-SHLOYME GLATSHTEYN

YOYSEF-SHLOYME GLATSHTEYN (1890-194?)

            He was born in Lublin.  He hailed from the elite, musical, and literary Glatshteyn family.  His father was the city cantor, R. Moyshele Glatshteyn, and he was the older brother of the musicologist and choir director, Yankev Glatshteyn, and the cousin of the poet Yankev Glatshteyn.  From his early youth, he was a choirboy in his father’s synagogue.  He received a traditional Jewish education.  He studied in religious elementary schools and secular subjects with private tutors.  Later, he went to study music in Warsaw, graduating from the Warsaw Conservatory in 1912.  He became very interested in Jewish music.  From 1912 until after WWI, he was choir director under Cantor Hershman at the Warsaw Sinai Synagogue, as well as at the Adas Yeshurin school and at other important schools.  He was a teacher of music in Warsaw middle schools and at the schools of the Central Jewish School Organization (Tsisho).  He wrote numerous treatises on music and musical events for the Bundist Lebnsfragn (Life issues), Folkstsaytung (People’s newspaper), and other Warsaw newspapers and magazines.  During WWII and the Nazi occupation, he remained in the Warsaw Ghetto.  He took part in concerts, led the choir, was a faithful preserver of all institutions and undertakings of Jewish music in the ghetto, and he served it with devotion.  He died in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Source: M. Nayshtat, Khurbn un oyfshtand fun di yidn in varshe (Destruction and uprising of the Jews in Warsaw) (Tel Aviv, 1948), pp. 400-1.

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