Zalmen Zylbercweig

Zalmen Zylbercweig (also: Zalman Zylbercwaig, Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Zalman Zilbertsvaig; born September 27, 1894 in Ozorków , Prussia , today Poland or Chortkov , Galicia , Austria-Hungary , today Ukraine ; † July 25, 1972 in Los Angeles ) was an off Yiddish playwright and chronicler from Eastern Europe.

Live and act

Zylbercweig was born as the son of the Yiddish writer Tsvi-Hirsh Zylbercweig and is a descendant of Rabbi Meir Malbim . At the age of three he and his family moved to nearby Łódź . Later he studied in Lida ( Belarus ) at the yeshiva of Rabbi Jizchak Jakob Reines , the co-founder of the Zionist Misrachi movement. He also graduated from a business school. He then worked in a real estate company, but gave in to his interest in theater as early as 1912 and was involved in founding the "LIDA" (Lodz Yiddish Dramatic Actors).

As a teenager, Zylbercweig wrote humorous skits in Yiddish, and from 1909 to 1910 he translated skits and stories from the European theater repertoire into Yiddish for the publication Eyropeishe Literatur . In 1910 a Yiddish translation of a play by Janusz Korczak appeared in the Lodzer Tageblat . Zylbercweig was already employed by this newspaper in 1912. From 1915 to 1924 he was editor of this newspaper and wrote features , political articles, reports, humorous and anecdotes, book, music and Yiddish theater reviews as well as adaptations of short stories and translations of European literature. His translations included pieces by Alexandre Dumas , William Shakespeare , Hermann Sudermann , Bernard Shaw , Henrik Ibsen , Herman Heijermans , Leonid Andrejew , Fyodor Dostoyevsky , Arthur Schnitzler and Octave Mirbeau . In 1924 he wrote the comedy Poznanski un Kon , which was performed in 1924 in Łódź.

From 1913 he translated European theater repertoire into Yiddish at the Scala Theater in Łódź. Later he modified these pieces in the course of the translation. As early as 1922, Zylbercweig began collecting materials for his life's work, the Leksikon fun Yidishn Teater , which appeared in 1931 . In 1924 he moved to the British Mandate Palestine . By 1927 he made two trips to the United States . He then traveled to Jewish communities around the world to collect information for his theater lexicon. After visiting Argentina , Poland , France and England in 1936 , he finally moved to the USA, to New York , in 1937 . There he worked for the Yidisher visnshaftlekher institut (YIVO), a Yiddish cultural and research organization, and wrote for the Jewish American . He also became a member of the Jewish National Workers Alliance and President of the United Emergency Relief Committee for the City of Lodz .

In 1948 Zylbercweig moved with his wife Celia to Los Angeles , where he presented the radio show "Zylbercweig Yiddish Radio Hour". He became chairman of the Committee for Yiddish Education and the local YIVO and was also involved in other organizations.

His estate, some Yiddish theater scripts, is in the University Library of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Parts of Zylbercweig's works can also be found in the library of the University of Potsdam .

Journalistic stations

Apart from the newspapers and magazines already mentioned, Zylbercweig worked during his time in Łódź as a correspondent for the Warsaw Yiddish daily Haynt (“Today”), the New York Forverts , the Buenos Aires Yidishe Tsaytung . Contributions have also appeared in Fraye Erd, Teater un Kunst, Teater un Kino, Heftn far Literatur, Der Yidisher Zhurnalist, Literatur, Yugend, Di Yetstige Tsayt and other literary journals that appeared in Lodz after 1912.

After his time in Łódź, articles appeared in the Warsaw publications Altnayland and Tageblat Bleter, in Vilner Tog ( Wilna ), Dos Naye Leben ( Białystok ) and Keneder Adler ( Montreal ) as well as in the New York publications Morgen-Zhurnal, Amerikaer, Di Tsukunft , Teater-Shtern, Pinkus fun Amopteyl (publication by the US-American YIVO) and YIVO-Bleter (New York). In Paris, articles were published in the Parizer Haynt and Undzer Vort , and in Yiddish and Hebrew papers in Palestine and Israel. Zylberzwaig also worked as an editor for the American from 1937 to 1948, and also in 1943 for Yisker-Bukh from Lodz, which was also published in New York . In 1955 he was co-editor of Eliyohu Tenenholts's Yoyvl-Bukh .

Lexicon of the Yiddish Theater

→ Main article : Leksikon fun Yidishn Teater

Zylbercweig's most important contribution to Yiddish literature and Yiddish theater is the Leksikon fun Yidishn Teater . It consists of six volumes with over 1,500 entries on Yiddish actors, screenwriters, playwrights, translators, critics, directors and theater organizations and covers a period of around 150 years, i.e. goes back to the beginnings of Yiddish theater . It also includes biographies of comedians, Purim players, broder singers and folk singers as well as monographs on Abraham Goldfaden , Jacob Gordin , Jizchok Leib Perez , David Pinski , Scholem Alejchem , Salman Reisen , Perez Hirschbein , Schalom Asch , Mendele Moicher Sforim , Nahum Stutchkoff and many others. A seventh volume was in the works, but was never completed. Its sources are scattered in various archives.

The fifth volume is subtitled “Kdoyshim band”, meaning “Martyrs Band” and is dedicated to all those theater professionals who were murdered during the Holocaust . The sixth volume contains information on the authors of the lexicon.

The lexicon was created with the collaboration of dozens of authors; the individual biographies show varying degrees of completeness. Often the place and name of birth are not or only incompletely mentioned. Nevertheless, the six-volume lexicon is the most extensive work ever written on Yiddish theater culture. Originally, the volumes were supposed to have the entries in alphabetical order, but in the course of many years of research this principle was gradually abandoned in order to also provide entries in the lexicon for theater professionals discovered later. It also happens that the person index of a band has names that are not included in the respective band, and vice versa.

In the Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies , Zylbercweig's work (in the spelling “Zylbertsvayg”) is recognized as a work by leading historians and critics of their time, which is a rich source on the Yiddish theater from imagination, exaggeration and self-exaggeration "suffer:

"The lexicon provides a rich source of material on the history of Jewish theater and the biographies of its artists, indluding descriptions of the Purimspiel tradition taken from the literature and memoirs of the time. Nevertheless, despite the excellent authority of its contributors - all leading historians and critics, such as Shatzky , Mukdoyni , and others - the Leksikon lacks accurate references and mingles authentic material with a medley of episodes and anecdotes that, like most memoirs, suffer from an excess of fantasy, exaggeration, and self-aggrandizement. [emphasis as in the original] "

- The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies, 2002

Works

Non-fiction books:

• Butt Forhang (articles and anecdotes about the Yiddish theater), Vilna, 1928, 207 pages
• Vos der Yidisher Aktyor Dertseylt (anecdotes), Vilna, 1928, 70 pages
• Teater-Zikhroynes (Memories, Anecdotes), Vilna, 1928, 106 pages
• Avram Goldfaden un Zigmunt Mogulesko (about Abraham Goldfaden and Sigmund Mogulesco ), Buenos Aires, 1936, 186 pages
• Teater-Figurn (biographical information on theater professionals ), Buenos Aires, 1936, 159 pages
• Albom fun Yidishn Teater , New York, 1937, 116 pages
• Avrom Goldfaden (on the occasion of Goldfadens 100th birthday), New York, 1940, 16 pages
• Teater-Mozaik , New York, 1941, 320 pages
• Ahad Ha-am un Zayn Batsiung tsu Yidish ( Ahad Haam and his relationship with Yiddish), Los Angeles, 1956, 140 pages
• Teater-Heftn , New York, 1943–1948 (partly taken over into the third edition [Volume?] Of the Leksikon fun Yidishn Teater )

• Leksikon fun Yidishn Teater (Subtitle: Lexicon of the Yiddish Theater , first two volumes together with Jacob Mestel ), Hebrew Actors Union of America (Ed.)
  • Volume 1: New York, 1931
  • Volume 2: Warsaw, 1934
  • Volume 3: New York, 1959
  • Volume 4: New York, 1963
  • Volume 5: Mexico City, 1967 ("Kdoyshim band" / Martyrs band)
  • Volume 6: Mexico City, 1969

Plays, one-act plays (incomplete):

• Ir Shvester , Warsaw, 1920, 32 pages
• Piotrkow , 1920, 24 pages
• Kharote (children's musical), Łódź, 1921, 32 pages
• Vide [Confession], undated
• The medalyon . no year

Melodramas (incomplete; written in Łódź and the surrounding area after 1918):

• The Yidisher revolutionary son
• With Farmakhte Oygn
• Man un Vayb
• The color researcher
• Di Shtoltse Froy

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} legacy.www.nypl.org - Zalman Zylbercweig ( July 29, 2014 memento in the Internet Archive ), Yiddish Theater Collection, New York Public Library; cites Leksikon fun of Nayer Yidisher literature as a source, translation into English by Faith Jones, Dorot Jewish Division, NYPL (accessed April 28, 2010)
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Finding Aid for the Zalmen Zylbercweig Collection of Yiddish Theater Scripts, 1926-1932 (PDF, 2002; 105 kB) , UCLA, Department of Special Collections, Manuscripts Division, Room A1713, Charles E. Young Research Library, Box 951575 (accessed on April 28, 2010)
3. ↑ Collections ( Memento from July 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed April 28, 2010)
4. ↑ ^{a b} www.jewish-theatre.com - Zalman Zylbercweig's Lexicon of Yiddish Theater ( September 11, 2014 memento in the Internet Archive ), Faith Jones, Dorot Jewish Division, The New York Public Library (accessed May 19, 2016)
5. ↑ ^{a b} Ahuva Belkin, Gad Kaynar: Jewish Theater. In: Martin Goodman (Ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies. Oxford University Press, New York 2002, p. 879