SHLOYME BEN-YISROEL (SHELOMO BEN-ISRAEL)

SHLOYME BEN-YISROEL (SHELOMO BEN-ISRAEL) (b. July 27, 1908-September 1989)

            He was born in Brisk (Brest), Lithuania, with the original surname of Gelfer.  He studied in religious primary school, Russian high school, and a Tarbut school.  In 1926 he made aliya as a pioneer to Israel.  From 1939 he was living in Boston, later in New York, where he served from 1950 until 1984 as political news commentator on Yiddish radio.  He debuted in print in 1925 with a humorous poem in Haynt (Today) in Warsaw.  He published articles of political analysis, reportage pieces, and detective stories in Forverts (Forward) starting in August 1940 and later was a regular contributor until 1980.  He was a great success with his detective stories in the Hebrew weekly Habalash haivri (The Jewish sleuth) and later in Yiddish as well.  A number of issues came out in Yiddish translation in special publications of Haynt (1939).  He also wrote for the Hebrew-language serials: Hamaḥar (Tomorrow), Kolnoa (Cinema), Iton meyukhad (Newspaper special), Doar hayom (Today’s mail)—all in Tel Aviv; and the Boston Globe.  In book form: Der tseykhn fun nekome, detektiv roman (The signs of revenge, a detective novel) (Tel Aviv: Shaḥaf, 1961), 256 pp. (in Hebrew it appeared with the title Ot hanakam (The mark of revenge).  In Hebrew: Karatav hamuzarim shel dani mor (The strange history of Dani Mor) (Tel Aviv, 1938), with an English edition appearing in 1945.  His series of reportage pieces in Forverts concerning his visit to Soviet Russia appeared in an English volume: Russian Sketches: A Visit to Jews without Hope (New York, 1967), 55 pp.  His detective novel Der shotn fun zayn gelibte (The shadow of his beloved) was dramatized by Isidor Lesh and staged in Yiddish in New York.  Among his many pen names: Shloyme Izraeli, Ben Larshi, B. Havakuk, Dovid Yekubi, B. Tsafonya, Dr. T. Shel, A. Hashumanit, and A. Ben-Sheva.  In 1979 he received the Jewish Heritage Award from the Program in Yiddish and Ethnic Studies at Queens College.  He died in New York.

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 94.