NOKHUM SHTERNHEYM (1879-1942)
He was a
folk poet, born in Reyshe (Rzeszów),[1]
Galicia. He hailed from a Hassidic
family. He attended yeshiva until age
seventeen. He worked as a business
employee, later a poor egg salesman.
From 1908 he lived for several years in the United States. He founded drama and music clubs. He composed hundreds of songs with his own
melodies. He would sing them alone on
various occasions, even in the Rzeszów ghetto where he perished. He wrote his folk poems for: Leybl Toybish’s Vokhenblat (Weekly newspaper), Lemberg’s
Togblat (Daily newspaper), Viener morgentsaytung (Vienna morning
newspaper), Anzelm Kleynman’s Yudisher
literarisher kalendar (Jewish literary calendar), and the collection Yontef-bikher (Holiday books) (Brin, 1917),
among others. He published separate
editions of his songs with notations (on a sheet or two of paper or on postcards):
“Tsiens lider” (Songs of Zion), “In mayn land” (In my country), “Dos yudishe
lied” (The Jewish song), “Shlof-lied” (Sleep song), “Dos redel” (The small
crowd), “Dos milkhome-yoseml” (The war orphan), “Legyonen-marsh” (March of
legions), and “Dos yudishe trinklied” (The Jewish drinking song), among
others. His most popular songs included:
“Yismakh moyshe” (Moses rejoiced), “Malkele” (Little Malka), “Grine velder”
(Green woods), “Hobn mir a nigundl” (We have a little tune), “Der balegole”
(The wagon driver), “Tsi gedenkstu” (Do you remember?), and Khanike-lied (Hanukkah song). Many of Shternberg’s songs were sung in
Galicia and elsewhere as anonymous folksongs.
His songs and couplets were almost all on Jewish motifs and ethnic
themes.
Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook
of the Yiddish theater), vol. 5 (Mexico City, 1966); Mendl Naygreshl, in Fun noentn over (New York) 1 (1955), pp.
351-52; Dov Sadan, Avne miftan,
masot al sofre yidish (Milestones, essays on Yiddish writers), vol. 1 (Tel
Aviv: Perets Publ., 1961), pp. 139, 218; Yitskhok Koler, Gedenkbukh galitsye (Memory volume for Galicia) (Buenos Aires,
1964); Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York).
Berl Cohen
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