PEYSEKH SAGALOV

PEYSEKH SAGALOV (b. June 10, 1892)

            He was born in Kiev, Ukraine, into a religious, merchant household.  He attended religious elementary schools and studied with Talmud teachers, in a “cheder metukan” (improved religious elementary school), and later as an external student prepared himself for the baccalaureate examinations.  In 1912 he moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he tried out various trades and worked as well as in farming.  Over the years 1913-1916, he lived in Rosario, and there he was active in the socialist group “Avangard” (Avant-garde).  He was a cofounder of the local dramatic section named for Perets Hirshbeyn.  He also managed (1913) the first evening school for children and adults in Rosario, and due to a deficiency of Yiddish textbooks at the time, he compiled on his own and published a booklet entitled Der alef beys (The alphabet), 4 pp.  He lived, 1917-1920, in Buenos Aires, where he assumed leading positions in the Labor Zionist movement.  He helped out with the Dovid Edelshadt Library and in the Jewish teachers’ organization in which he was among the most active leaders.  In 1921 he was a teacher in the Moses Hess folk school in the Rivera colony, where he also published a children’s magazine, Kinderlekh (Little children), written by and for children—six issues appeared.  That year he began publishing children’s stories in the journals Groys un kleyn (Big and small) and Di pen (The pen), and he later contributed children’s stories, mostly about colonists’ lives, to (all in Buenos Aires): Di prese (The press), Der shpigl (The mirror), Blimelekh (Little flowers), Argentiner beymelekh (Little Argentinian flowers), Penemer un penemlekh (Appearances, big and small), and Idishe tsaytung (Jewish newspaper) in which (1928-1941) he published virtually every week in the children’s section.  With Y. Fayershteyn, he also brought a children’s magazine, Kinder-fraynt (Children’s friend) in 1938—four issues appeared.  In sum, Sagalov worked as a teacher and was a leader in the secular Yiddish schools of Argentina for about forty years.  In his youth he was a close friend of A. Kushnirov, who worked as an employee in the shop run by Sagalov’s father.  He was last living in Buenos Aires.

Sources: P. Kats, Geklibene shriftn (Selected writings) (Buenos Aires, 1947), pp. 63, 164; M. Mayern-Lazer, Dos yidish shulvezn in argentine (The Jewish school curriculum in Argentina), vol. 1 (Buenos Aires, 1948), pp. 77-78, 83, 204, 207.

Benyomen Elis