Wednesday 14 November 2018

UZIEL FLAYSHMAN (FLEISCHMAN)


UZIEL FLAYSHMAN (FLEISCHMAN) (February 8, 1875-September 18, 1953)
            He was born in Probuzhno (Probizhna), near Chortkiv, eastern Galicia.  He received a traditional Hassidic education.  At age thirteen he moved with his parents to Radovits (Radovychi), Bukovina.  At age fifteen he turned his attention to secular subjects and acquainted himself with Hebrew and German literature.  In 1896 he made his way to the United States, and there he worked for ten years as a tailor.  He debuted in print in 1903 with a poem in the weekly newspaper Hoyz-fraynd (House friend) in New York, and soon thereafter published poems in: Fraye arbeter-shtime (Free voice of labor) and the weekly Arbeter (Laborer) edited by Dovid Pinski; and later he placed poems and sketches in Forverts (Forward), as well as numerous humorous verses in Kundes (Prankster), Kibetser (Kibbitzer), and Yidisher gazlen (Jewish thief)—in New York.  From November 1914 he became an internal contributor to Tog (Day) in New York.  He published poems in the humor section, as well as sketches and journalistic works (using such pen names as: E. L. Flamshteyn, L. Keyleson, A Yidisher Shtifer, and A. Biver).  In 1925 he published a novel there, entitled Alts far libe (Everything for love).  With the rise of the “Yunge” (Young) group of poets, he was one of the most promising Yiddish poets in America, and he contributed to their anthology Literatur (Literature).  His work was also represented in the collection Amerike in yidishn vort (America in the Yiddish word), ed. N. Mayzil (New York, 1955).  In the last years of his life, he was in charge of a division in Tog entitled “Der krumer shpigl” (The crooked mirror).

Sources: N. B. Minkov, in Kultur un detsiung (New York) (February 1951); Y. Libman, in Nyu yorker vokhnblat (New York) 469 (1953); Kh. Gotesfeld, in Forverts (New York) (September 2, 1958); B. Ts. Goldberg, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (March 10, 1964).
Leyb Vaserman


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