SHMUEL VAYS

SHMUEL VAYS (b. September 6, 1897)

            This was the adopted name of Shmuel Vaysbroyt.  He was born in Pulav (Puławy), Lublin district, Poland.  He studied in religious elementary school, and at age thirteen went to work in a tailor’s shop.  From his early youth, he was active in the labor movement.  He moved to Hungary in 1918, and from there made his way to the United States in 1924, studied at the Jewish teachers’ seminary in New York, and was active in the socialist movement.  He later became a business agent in the New York Cloakmakers Union (1944-1950).  He began journalistic work in 1916 for the newspaper of the Pulav labor union.  In 1935 he began writing systematically every day in Fraye arbeter shtinme (Free voice of labor) in New York, where he published “Trade union notices” weekly.  Over the years 1936-1940, he was editor of Di sotsyalistishe shtime (The socialist voice), organ of the Jewish division of the American socialist party.  He was a regular contributor, 1941-1948, to Unzer tsayt (Our time), a monthly put out by the Bund in New York.  From 1942 he wrote regular treatises on political matters in Der veker (The alarm), organ of the Jewish Socialist Union in America.  From the end of 1950, he was co-editor of Gerekhtikeyt (Justice), a monthly from the International Ladies’ Garments Workers’ Union in New York, until the journal ceased publishing (early 1958).  He published essays on political and trade union issues in Tog (Day) and Forverts (Forward)—both in New York—as well.  He was the author of a tract on the Jewish labor movement in America in the Algemeyne entsiklopedye (General encyclopedia), “Yidn 5” (New York, 1957), pp. 244-310.  He was last living in New York.

Sources: Y. Sh. Herts, Di yidishe sotsyalistishe bavegung in amerike (The Jewish socialist movement in America) (New York, 1954), p. 412; Y. Levin-Shatskes, in Der veker (New York) (November 1, 1957).

Zaynvl Diamant