2/27 | Birthday of Zusman Segalowicz
Today in Yiddishkayt… February 27 Birthday of Zusman Segalowicz, Yiddish poet, novelist, and journalist Zusman Segalowicz (also spelled Segalowitch or, phonetically, Segalovitsh) was born on February 27, 1884 in Białystok. In 1940, Segalowicz was aptly described by A.A. Roback as “the most popular writer in Poland, now in Lithuania, and apparently the most productive.” Between 1903 and 1905, he was a member of Bundist underground circles, an affiliation that led to his imprisonment. In 1903 Segalowicz published his first poem in Russian, but a year later turned to...
Read More2/17 | Birthday of Ossip Dymov
Today in Yiddishkayt… February 17 Birthday of Ossip Dymov (Yosef Perelman), Yiddish Writer Yosef Perelman was born on February 17, 1878 in Białystok. In 1902, Perelman graduated from the Forestry Institute in Saint Petersburg where he earned a degree in land surveying. He took an interest in literature and began writing under the pseudonym Ossip Dymov, named after a character in Anton Chekhov’s classic short story “Grasshopper.” His literary career began as a columnist for a Saint Petersburg weekly called Театр и искусство (Theater and...
Read More12/15 | Birthday of L. L. Zamenhof,
Today in Yiddishkayt… December 15 Birthday of L. L. Zamenhof, Creator of Esperanto Born Leyzer Zamenhof in Bialystok in 1859, Zamenhof grew up a Yiddish and Russian speaker in a city with a majority of Jews but with a significant population of Poles, Russians, Germans, Belarusians, and Lithuanians—each group speaking its on ethnic language. Zamenhof believed that hostility between groups was often the result of misunderstanding and as a child began to develop the idea that language had the potential to unify as well as divide. He came to believe that a common language, alongside...
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