RELI BLAY (RELLY BLEI)

RELI BLAY (RELLY BLEI) (July 15, 1913-2000)

            She was born in Arbora, a village in Bukovina.  She studied in middle school in Radevits (Rădăuţi), Bukovina.  She studied literature in Paris in the 1930s and was a member of the anti-fascist movement.  She then went with her husband (Froym) to Czernowitz and joined the Communist Party.  In 1941 she was deported to Transnistria.  There she began writing songs that were sung in the camps.  After WWII, she moved to Radautz and took part in the effort to rebuild the postwar Jewish youth movement there.  She taught Yiddish in a middle school and established a choir.  She authored songs, poetry, and short stories and was a member of the Romanian Authors’ Association.  Among her books: Mit poshete verter (With simple words) (Bucharest: State Publishers, 1957), 183 pp.; Lider (Poems) (Bucharest: Literatur, 1966), 118 pp.; In meshekh fun yorn (Over the years) (Bucharest: Kriteryon, 1976), 131 pp.; Froyen aleyn, dertseylungen un mesholim (Women alone, stories and tales) (Bucharest: Kriteryon, 1980), 94 pp.; In shoen fun troyer, in reges fun freyd (In hours of grief, in moments of joy) (Bucharest: Kriteryon, 1982), 168 pp., with Froym Blay.

Sources: M. Rispler, Oyfshteyg (Ascent) (Bucharest, 10972), pp. 534-35; Y. Kara, in Morgn frayhayt (New York) (July 30, 1980); Kara, in Folks-shtime (Warsaw) (January 23, 1981); Kara, in Bukareshter shriftn 6 (1983), pp. 188-90.

                                                                                                                                                      Y. Kara

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), cols. 91-92; Handbuch österreichischer Autorinnen und Autoren jüdischer Herkunft 18. bis 20. Jahrhundert (2002), vol. 1, p. 132.