ABE SAPIR

ABE SAPIR (1898-January 19, 1974)

            He was born in Vilna.  He spent WWI in Russia and after the Revolution of 1917 returned to Vilna.  As an active member of the left Labor Zionists, he was arrested by the Polish authorities.  He was one of the organizers of the wind instrument orchestra associated with the Maccabi Gymnastics and Sports Association in Vilna (1924).  In 1931 he organized a regular international art exhibition in Vilna with the participation of thirty-eight Jewish, Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, Byelorussian and German artists.  Over the years 1931-1937, he organized several dozen collective and individual art shows in Vilna, Grodno, Bialystok, and Druzgenik.  For a time he was the manager of Vilner tog (Vilna day) and the editor-publisher of: Kunst un lebn (Art and life) (1923); Vilner literarisher kunst-zhurnal (Vilna literary and art journal) (1924); Di bime (The stage) (1924-1925); Di naye bime (The new stage) (1925); Vilner mitog-blat (Vilna afternoon newspaper) (1925); Lidya pototska, yoyvl-oysgabe tsu der 15-yoriker stseniker tetikeyt (Lidia Potocka, jubilee publication on her fifteen years on the stage) (July 1927), 4 pp.—all in Vilna.  He also published articles in Vilner tog and other newspapers.  His last article was published in Warsaw’s Idisher ekspres (Jewish express) (February 1939).  In the war years he lived in Soviet Russia and worked as a photo reporter for TASS.  He lived later in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he worked as secretary for the cultural department of the Jewish National Fund.  From 1969 he was living in Tel Aviv, where he died.

Sources: LE, in Vilner tog (Vilna) (January 18, 1931); B. Zalkind, in Vilner tog (April 1931); H. Mats, in Vilner almanakh (Vilna almanac) (Vilna, 1939), p. 159; Leyzer Ran, 25 yor yung vilne (Twenty-five years of Young Vilna) (New York, 1955).

Leyzer Ran

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 396.]