MOYSHE KATS (KATZ)

MOYSHE KATS (KATZ) (late 1864-June 14, 1941)

            He was a journalist, playwright, and translator, born in Moliev (Mogilev).  He spelled his surname: Katts (קאטץ).  He received a somewhat secular education.  For several years, he lived in Kovno, did physical labor, and later took up teaching.  In 1883 he was a free auditor at Moscow University.  He was initially a Populist (Narodnik), while at the same time falling under the influence of “Ḥoveve-Tsiyon” (Lovers of Zion).  After the Kishinev pogrom of 1903, he switched to the Socialist Revolutionaries and later to Zionism.  In the United States, whence he fled in 1888 due to police repression, Katz became very active in the American Jewish labor movement, especially among the anarchists.  For many years he was one of the Jewish anarchist leaders as a journalist, editor, and speaker.  In addition to party publicist work, he wrote a great deal about literature and theater and translated many works.  His literary activities commenced in 1889 in the anarchist Di frayhayt (The freedom).  He was a cofounder of Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor) in 1890 and for two years (until 1894) its editor.  He contributed to: Fraye gezelshaft (Free society) (also co-editor); Arbayter fraynd (Workers’ friend) and Zherminal (Germinal)—both in London; Idisher folks-advokat (Jewish people’s advocate) and Teglikher idisher herald (Daily Jewish herald)—editor of both; Der nayer gayst (The new spirit), Dos idishe folk (The Jewish people), and Forverts (Forward) for which he served as literary editor (1900-1905).  He edited the daily newspaper Di idishe velt (The Jewish world) in Philadelphia, where he settled in 1912.  There he published a long series of articles entitled “Lektsyes iber literatur un drama” (Lectures on literature and drama).  His books include: Di anarkhistishe gezelshaft (Anarchist society) (New York: Anarchist Pamphlet Association, 1894), 30 pp.; Der gengster, oder soydes fun der untervelt, roman in dray teyln (The gangster, secrets of the underworld, a novel in three parts) (New York, 1913), 352 pp.; Emil zola’s lebens bashraybung, zayne layden un zayn erfolg, zayne faynd un zayn groyskayṭ, zayn leben un zayn virken (Émile Zola’s biography, his sufferings and his success, his enemy and his greatness, his life and his impact) (New York, n.d.), 72 pp.; Geklibene shriftn, artiklen eseyen un felyetonen (Selected writings, articles, essays, and features) (New York, 1939), 256 pp.  Of Katz’s original and translated plays, the following were published: Leonid Andreyev, Der ashmeday (Ashmodai [original: Anatema]) (New York: Hebrew Publishing Co., 1909), 130 pp.; Andreyev, Der teg fun unzer leben (The days of our life [original: Dni nashei zhizni]) (New York: Mayzil, 1910), 92 pp.; Andreyev, Anfisa (Anfisa) (New York: Hebrew Publishing Co., 1912), 101 pp.; Andreyev, Veaavto lereykho kamokho (You should love your neighbor as yourself [original: Liubov’ k blizhnemu (Love of one’s neighbor)]); Geklibene shriftn (Selected writings) of Leonid Andreyev (New York: Hebrew Publishing Co., 1912); “In goles” (In the diaspora), in Dos idishe folk (The Jewish people) in New York (1912); Der idisher don kikhot (The Jewish Don Quixote), the first act of which appeared in M. katts, tsu der gelegenheyt fun zayn zekhstigsten geburtstog (M. Katz, on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday) (Philadelphia, 1925).  Unpublished plays, the majority translated or adapted by Katz, include: Di finstere nakht (The dark night); Der idisher don khikhote (aside from the first act); Gedalye bal-agole (Gedalye the coachman) adapted from Gerhart Hauptmann’s Führmann Henschell; Der giber (The hero) adapted from A. Holm; Loy mit an alef, oder aseres-hadibres (Absolutely not, or the Ten Commandments), poems from the play published in B. Gorin’s Der teater zhurnal (The theater journal) 1 (1901); Got’s mishpotim (God’s judgments) by L. Shpakhner; Vemens shuld, oder minye grobyan (Someone’s fault, or Minye Grobyan), subject from A. M. Fingert; Der boymayster (The master builder [original: Bygmester Solness]) by Henrik Ibsen; Rabi yisroel (Rabbi Yisrael); Darf a froy oyszogn? (Should a woman reveal?); Shabtay-tsvi (Shabatai Tsvi), translated with Yoyel Entin; Fimka di tsigaretn-makherin (Fimka, the cigarette maker [original: Fimka]) by Vladimir O. Trakhtenberg.  Other translations include: Pyotr Kropotkin, Dos menshlikhe rekht, di ershte 4 kapitlen fun broyt un frayhayt (Human rights, the first four chapters of Bread and Freedom) (London: Arbayter fraynd, 1906), 71 pp.; Broyt un frayhayt (Bread and freedom [original: Khleb i volya]), with A. Frumkin (London: Arbayter fraynd, 1906), 344 pp.; Lev Tolstoy, Anna karenina (Anna Karenina) (New York: Varhayt, 1911), 853 pp.; Tolstoy, Tkhies-hameysim (Resurrection of the dead [original: Voskreseniye (Resurrection)]) (New York: International Library, 1914), 318 pp., new edition (1917)—these two novels by Tolstoy, plus his Kreytser sonata (Kreutzer Sonata [original: Kreitzerova Sonata]), were dramatized by Katz; Ivan Turgenev, “Hamlet un don kikhote” (Hamlet and Don Quixote [original: “Gamlet i Don-Kikhot”]); Fyodor Dostoevsky, Erniderigte un beleydigte (Humiliated and insulted [original: Unizhennye i oskorblyonnye]), Varhayt (Truth) (1912); Gabriele d’Annunzio, Di tsnue (The chaste woman), republished in Tsayt (Time) in London (1922); L. Tolstoy, “Der eyntsiker mitel” (The sole means) (New York: International Library, n.d.), 28 pp.; Tolstoy, “Patryotizmus un regirung” (Patriotism and government) (New York: International Library, n.d.), 34 pp.  To honor Katz, two jubilee volumes entitled M. katts, zamelbukh (M. Katz, anthology) were published (Philadelphia, 1925, 1935).  “Katz was a playwright,” wrote B. Rivkin, “and remained a playwright, even when he was not writing a play.  His special contribution to the development of the Yiddish play was a playwright’s product—a playwright’s monologue.”  “As a literary and theater critic,” noted Yoyel Entin, “Katz possessed sacred rights….  He wrote his criticism always factually with the most stringent objectivity.  He was…a thoroughly fine analyst.”  He died in Philadelphia.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 4 (New York, 1963); Y. Khaykin, Yidishe bleter in amerike, a tsushteyer tsu der 75-yoriker geshikhte fun der yidisher prese in di fareynikte shtatn un kanade (Yiddish letters in America, a contribution to the seventy-five year history of the Yiddish press in the United States and Canada) (New York, 1946), see index; Elye (Elias) Shulman, Geshikhte fun der yidisher literatur in amerike (History of Yiddish literature in America) (New York, 1943), pp. 48, 64ff; Sh. Perlmuter, Yidishe dramaturgn un teater-kompozitorn (Yiddish playwrights and theatrical composers) (New York, 1952).

Berl Cohen