IZO SHAPIRO

IZO SHAPIRO (February 24, 1903-April 4, 1981)

            He was born in Shots (Suceava), Bukovina.  He received a traditional education.  In the mid-1930s he left for Paris where he was active in PYAT (Parizer Yidisher Arbeter-teater, Parisian Yiddish workers’ theater).  He took part in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and in 1944 amidst the Romanian partisans against the Nazis.  After the war he was again active in Yiddish theater.  Earlier in Bucharest and from 1949 in Jassy (Iași), he was for thirteen years director of the local Yiddish state theater.  He wrote reviews of theatrical performances and books in the trilingual Tsaytshrift (Periodical) in Bucharest and elsewhere.  He was the author of: Alef iz an odler, roman (Alef is an eagle, a novel) (Bucharest: Kriteryon, 1979), 177 pp.; and Masoes benyomen harevie (Travels of Benjamin IV), a poem (Bucharest: Kriteryon, 1983), 145 pp.  He co-edited Bukareshter shriftn (Bucharest writings), vol. 3 (Bucharest, 1980).  He died in Bucharest.

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 515.]