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
No comments:
Post a Comment