Sunday 22 May 2016

BEN-TSIEN VAYS (WEISS)

BEN-TSIEN VAYS (WEISS) (1888-March 27, 1950)
            He was born in Pahost, near Minsk, Byelorussia.  He studied in religious elementary school, synagogue study hall, and later in Russian high schools in Bobruisk and Minsk.  During the pogroms of 1905-1906, he fought in the ranks of the Labor Zionist self-defense groups against the pogromists.  Due to the persecutions of the Tsarist authorities, he ran off to Finland and from there to Israel, where from 1906 to 1910 he was a guard in the Jewish colonies.  He moved to the United States in 1910, settled in Boston, studied medicine there, and in 1916 graduated with his medical degree.  He practiced thereafter as a heart specialist his entire life.  He was also active in Jewish community and cultural life in Boston.  He published articles on medical issues, educational problems, and Jewish community affairs in: Der idisher zhurnal (The Jewish journal) in Boston; Di idishe velt (The Jewish world) in Philadelphia; Folksblat (People’s newspaper) and Di idishe shtime (The Jewish voice) in Kovno, Lithuania; and in such Hebrew periodicals as Hadoar (The mail), Hayehudi (The Jew), Bitsaron (Fortress), Hayom (Today), Rama (Standard), Harofe (The doctor), and Haivri (The Jew)—all in New York.  He also translated stories from Yiddish and Hebrew literature, and published them in the English-language Jewish press.  He died in Boston

Sources: Z. Brokhes, Yorbukh fun amopteyl (Annual from the American branch [of YIVO]) 2 (1939), p. 242; M. M. Kantor, in Hadoar (New York) (April 14, 1950); Dr. Sh. Kohen, in Harofe haivri (New York) 1 (1950), pp. 91-93.


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