AVROM NUSBOYM

AVROM NUSBOYM

            He was born in Warsaw.  He ran the Hotel Wileński (a “Lithuanian Hotel”) on Franciszkańska Street.  In 1880 he published in Warsaw a booklet concerned with the foundations of the Jewish community.  In 1885 he published a “novel”: Pesele di gabete, oder der fummer apikoyres (Pesele the gabete [?], or the pious heretic) (Warsaw: Khayim Kelter), 56 pp.  On the frontispiece it is stated that he was also the author of Der tiranisher melamed (The tyrannical schoolteacher).  In 1887 his work, Tsvey kerper mit eyn zeele, oder der frummer apikoyres (Two bodies with one soul, or the pious heretic), “a theatrical comedy in five acts (ten images), written by Avrom Nusboym in Warsaw, publisher of several interesting novels (Warsaw, 1887), 44 pp.”  It is stated on the first page: “Two Bodies with One Soul, a historical novel.  Here is presented fanatical parents who would like their only daughter to become engaged to a yeshiva lad and did not carry this out; then, the daughter falls in love with an educated aristocrat, and she is compelled to run off with her beloved to Odessa; with the passage of time, her parents become impoverished, and her children acquire considerable holdings.  And the children come to their support.  The author.”  In 1888 he published a novel entitled Di tiger zeele und a menshen kerper, oder di tiranishe froy (The tiger soul and a human body, or the tyrannical woman) (Warsaw), 46 pp.  Dr. Yankev Shatski considers Nusboym among those authors who writings stand at the threshold of literature and have not entered the temple of literature.

Sources: Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 2 (New York, 1934); Nakhmen Haberman, Nokh etlekhe verter vegn tsienismus (A few more words about Zionism) (Warsaw, 1902), p. 26; Dr. Y. Shatski, in Yivo-beter (New York) 23 (January-June 1944); Shatski, Geshikhte fun yidn in varshe (History of Jews in Warsaw), vol. 3 (New York, 1953), pp. 19, 269.