5/11 | Birthday of Irving Berlin
Today in Yiddishkayt… May 11 Birthday of Irving Berlin, Lyricist and Composer Irving Berlin was born Yisroel (Isidore) Baline on May 11, 1888 in a shtetl near Mogilev (today Магілёў, Belarus). He was the youngest of eight children born to Moyshe (a cantor) and Lena Baline. The family settled in New York in 1893 and three years later Moyshe (now Moses) died leaving the family poverty-stricken. In 1902, Israel Baline left home and worked at various singing jobs in the city. In 1906, he wrote his first song, “Marie from Sunny Italy” and changed his name to...
Read More5/10 | Birthday of Léon Bakst
Today in Yiddishkayt… May 10 Birthday of Léon Bakst, Painter & Theater Designer Léon Bakst was born Lev (or Leyb) Rosenberg on May 10, 1866 to a middle class Jewish family in Grodno (today: Гродно, Belarus). He studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts as a noncredit student and worked as a book illustrator. He was expelled from the Academy after depicting figures in the Pietà as impoverished Jews. At the time of his first exhibition in 1889 he took the surname “Bakst” apparently based on his mother’s maiden name, although its origin is unclear. At the...
Read More5/9 | Birthday of Dovid Edelstadt
Today in Yiddishkayt… May 9 Birthday of Dovid Edelstadt, Anarchist & Poet Dovid Edelstadt was born on May 9, 1866 in Kaluga (today: Калуга, Russia). He was educated in Russian language and literature and he published his first poem in Russian at the age of 12. After the Kiev pogrom of 1881 he emigrated to the United States as part of an agrarian settlement program. Rather than moving to the countryside, however, he settled in Cincinnati to work in the garment industry. In 1888 he moved to New York City, where he continued working in sweatshops and became involved in the...
Read More5/8 | Yortsayt of Berek Joselewicz
Today in Yiddishkayt… May 8 Yortsayt of Berek Joselewicz, Jewish-Polish Military Leader Dov-Ber (Berek) Joselewicz was born on September 17, 1764 in Kretinga in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth—a small town near the city of Polągi (Palanga). After receiving a traditional Jewish education, he worked as the financial agent to the local landowner, Bishop Ignacy Jakub Massalski. In this capacity, he traveled frequently to Western Europe, conducting various entrepreneurial activities. With the fortune he amassed, Joselewicz settled in the Warsaw suburb of Praga, where he married his wife...
Read More5/6 | Birthday of Y.A. Merison
Today in Yiddishkayt… May 6 Birthday of Y.A. Merison, Yiddish anarchist & translator Y. A. Merison (Yankev-Avrom Yerukhimovitsh) was born on May 6, 1866 near Vilna, to a rabbinical family. Later, he was also known by his Anglicized penname Dr. Jacob Merison. In 1887 he immigrated to the United States and settled in New York. There he earned a medical degree and joined the Pioneers of Freedom, the first Jewish American anarchist group. Merison is best known for translating important scientific and political works into Yiddish. He translated the work of writers like Charles Darwin,...
Read More5/5 | Birthday of Moyshe Nadir
Today in Yiddishkayt… May 5 Birthday of Moyshe Nadir, Yiddish writer Yitskhok Reiss, better known by his pen name Moyshe Nadir, was born on May 5, 1885 in the town of Narayev (today Нараїв, Ukraine) in eastern Galicia. In 1898, at the age of 13, he immigrated to New York and Americanized his name to Isaac Reiss. He spent his teenage years working in a sweatshop. He lived in a mostly gentile neighborhood and in 1902 sent a Yiddish newspaper some of his work. Soon after,his writing was picked up and published widely in the New York Yiddish press, under a variety of pseudonyms,...
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