5/4 | Birthday of Mordecai Gebirtig
Today in Yiddishkayt… May 4 Birthday of Mordecai Gebirtig, Yiddish poet & songwriter Mordecai Gebirtig (Bertig) was born on May 4, 1877 in Kraków. According to most sources he was trained as a carpenter, (although many details about Gebirtig’s first 20 years have recently been refuted by Natan Gross). Gebirtig began his artistic career in the first years of the twentieth century as an actor with an amateur theatrical company in Kraków. With support from Avrom Reyzen, Gebirtig began to write and published his works in the periodical דער...
Read More5/3 | Birthday of Maurycy Trębacz
Today in Yiddishkayt… May 3 Birthday of Maurycy Trębacz, Artist Maurycy (Moyshe) Trębacz was born on May 3, 1861 to a Jewish family in Warsaw. From 1877 to 1880, Trębacz received private drawing lessons. He then received a two-year scholarship to attend the School of Fine Arts in Kraków, where he studied under the well-known historical painters Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and Jan Matejko. He continued his education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, under Otto Seitz and Alexander Wagner, and graduated with a silver medal for his 1884 painting “Z martyrologii” (Of...
Read More4/30 | Birthday of Louis Miller (Bandes)
Today in Yiddishkayt… April 30 Birthday of Louis Miller (Bandes), Journalist Louis Miller was born Leon (Levi) Bandes on April 30, 1866 in Vilna. He settled in the US in 1884, in the midst of one of the most significant periods of the development of socialism and progressivism. In 1888, together with his older brother and mentor, he founded and edited a Russian language workers’ newspaper, Знамя (The Standard). A year after that he represented the United Hebrew Trades at the first International Socialist Convention in Paris. In 1890, Miller joined forces with Abraham...
Read More4/29 | Birthday of Reuben Iceland
Today in Yiddishkayt… April 29 Birthday of Reuben Iceland, Yiddish writer Reuben Iceland (Ruvn Ayzland) was born on April 29, 1884 in Groß Radomysl, Galicia, Austria-Hungary (today, Radomyśl Wielki, Poland). He began writing poetry in Hebrew and was first published in Jerusalem in 1900. Iceland emigrated to the U.S in 1903 and began publishing poems and stories in Yiddish in 1904. A founder of a group of young writers known as Yunge, his work was often published in the journals of the Young Generation. In 1919 he joined the staff of the daily טאָג (The Day), which later became...
Read More4/27 | Birthday of Rudolph Schildkraut
Today in Yiddishkayt… April 27 Birthday of Rudolph Schildkraut, Actor Rudolph Schildkraut was born on April 27, 1862 in Constantinople, but was raised in Galaţi, Romania. Schildkraut was introduced to acting early on as his parents ran a hotel in Galaţi that frequently hosted Yiddish actors. In his mid-teens, he joined a troupe of itinerant actors and after a few years of touring, he acted in comedies and operettas at the Raimund Theater in Vienna. However, Schildkraut wanted more serious dramatic roles so he began to take acting lessons from the German tragedian Friedrich Mitterwurzer....
Read More4/26 | Birthday of Bernard Malamud
Today in Yiddishkayt… April 26 Birthday of Bernard Malamud, Jewish American author Bernard Malamud was born on April 26, 1914 in Brooklyn to parents who immigrated from the Russian Empire. Malamud attended high school in Brooklyn and received his bachelor’s degree from the City College of New York in 1936. After graduation he worked in a factory and as a clerk at the Census Bureau in Washington, D.C. In 1942, he obtained a Master’s degree from Columbia University, writing a thesis on Thomas Hardy. His first short stories, “Benefit Performance” and “The Place...
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