SIMKHE SHVARTS

SIMKHE SHVARTS (1900-August 14, 1974)

            A poet, theater enthusiast, and sculptor, he was born in Podeloy (Podu Iloaiei), Romania, the brother of Itsik Shvarts (Y. Kara) and Julian Shvarts.  In his youth he moved to Jassy (Iași), later to Bucharest and later still to Czernowitz where he created his variety theater, Cameleo (1930-1935).  He himself wrote texts, directed, and acted as well.  In 1936 he left for Paris, where he studied theater and sculpture and established his marionette theater “Hakol bekhol” which proved extremely successful.  In early 1952 he settled in Buenos Aires.  He wrote for Bucharest’s Unzer veg (Our way), Shoybn (Window panes) (the first chapters of his volume of memoirs entitled Podeloy); Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw 28 (1934); and Idishe kultur (Jewish culture) in New York. He co-edited Idishe presse (Jewish press) in Sighet (1929-1932).  He dramatized Mendele’s Fikhke der krumer (Fishke the lame) and translated Tsen lider fun bodler un verlen (Ten poems by Baudelaire and Verlaine) (Czernowitz, 1936), 29 pp.  Of his sculptures, we should note his monument for the fallen fighters in Israel which is in the Buenos Aires cemetery.  He died in Buenos Aires.

Sources: Sh. Shvaytser, in Folksblat (Tel Aviv) 8-9 (1974); Yitskhok Yanasovitsh, in Letste nayes (Tel Aviv) (September 3, 1974); M. Surkis, in Yisroel-shtime (Tel Aviv) (October 30, 1974); Yankl Yakir, in Yisroel-shtime (December 11, 1974); Y. Shvarts, Literarishe dermonungen (Literary remembrances) (Bucharest, 1975), p. 193.

Y. Kara