YANKEV PRIZAMENT

YANKEV PRIZAMENT (May 7, 1885-February 1, 1923)

            The son of Moyshe Prizament, he was born in Hovniv (Uhniv), near Rava-Ruska, Galicia.  Until age sixteen, he studied in yeshiva.  He worked at bookkeeping and at the same time was a professional prompter for Gimpel’s Lemberg Yiddish theater.  There he first play, Gdalye hoyker (Gdalye the hunchback), was staged.  He was also the author of: Sherlok holms (Sherlock Holmes), a comedy; Kapitan dreyfus (Captain Dreyfus), and Der vayser otello (The white Othello), among other plays; and he wrote one-act plays, couplets, and theatrical songs, and published poetry in periodical publications.  He translated for the Yiddish theater: Shakespeare’s Othello, Shaylok (Shylock) [= The Merchant of Venice?], Hamlet, and Makbet (Macbeth), and Schiller’s Di royber (The robbers [original: Die Räuber]).  He left behind an unpublished biblical drama Iev (Job) in verse.  He authored the libretto Shimshn (Samson).  He also left in manuscript a dramatization of Victor Hugo’s Der glokntsyer fun notrdam (The bell ringer of Notre Dame [original Notre-Dame de Paris]).

Source: Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 3 (New York, 1959), pp. 1872-73.

Benyomen Elis