AVROM-SHMUEL SHVARTS

AVROM-SHMUEL SHVARTS (June 1, 1876-June 16, 1957)

            He was a Hebrew poet, born in Zezmer (Žiežmariai), Lithuania, the brother of Yisroel-Yankev Shvarts (Y. Y. Schwartz).  He received both a Jewish and a general education.  In 1900 he emigrated to the United States.  He worked as a Hebrew teacher in New York and there completed his medical degree.  He initially wrote in Yiddish.  In 1900 he debuted in print with a poem in Yud (Jew) in Cracow.  He published poetry in: Tsukunft (Future), Minikes yontef bleter (Minike’s holiday sheets), and elsewhere.  His work also appeared in Morris Basin’s 500 yor yidishe poezye (500 years of Yiddish poetry) (New York, 1922).  He later stopped writing in Yiddish.  He died in New York.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4 (under the biography for Y. Y. Shvarts); Getzel Kressel, Leksikon hasifrut haivrit (Handbook of Hebrew literature), vol. 2 (Merḥavya, 1967); Zalmen Shazar, Opshatsungen un eseyen (Treatments and essays) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1976), pp. 110-21.

Ruvn Goldberg