JAY GRAYSON

JAY GRAYSON (March 1, 1899-July 19, 1979)

            Adopted name of YankevAbramovitsh, he was born in Bobryusk, Minsk region, Byelorussia.  He father was a Hebrew teacher.  He studied in religious primary school and in a Russian school.  From 1915 he was in Odessa where he studied in the Tsarist Art School.  In 1916, when Russia was recruiting into the military from age seventeen, he was drafted into the army.  Later, during the revolutionary period, he served in the Red Army.  In December 1919 he emigrated to the United States, where he initially was employed in physical labor and some time later began publishing in Forverts (Forward) descriptions of Ataman Semyonov’s persecutions of Jews in Ukraine, in connection with Semyonov’s arrival in America.  From 1924 he was a regular contributor to Forverts as a reporter.  For a time he was editor of the theater, movie, and television section.  Among his pen names: Y. Bobryusker, Sidi Grin, and Y. Jackson.  He died in New York.

Source: Hilel Rogof, Der gayst fun forverts (The spirit of the Forverts) (New York, 1954), pp. 157-62.