3/20 | Birthday of Moyshe Kulbak
Today in Yiddishkayt… March 20 Birthday of Moyshe Kulbak, Poet Moyshe Kulbak was born in Smorgon (today Смаргонь, Belarus), Vilna Province of the Russian Empire on March 20, 1896. The small town had a legendary status among the Jews of the area. The Radziwill family, which historically controlled the region, had set up a circus bear training academy in the town and created thriving leather and tanning industry as well as a tar manufacturing concern. The surreal mix of circus bears and local laborers making their living from the land would eventually be immortalized in Kulbak’s...
Read More1/29 | Birthday of Romain Rolland
Today in Yiddishkayt… January 29 Birthday of Romain Rolland, French Writer French writer Romain Rolland was born in the sleepy village of Clamecy (about 150 miles southeast of Paris) on January 29, 1866 to a provincial, Catholic, and petit bourgeois family. He attended school in France and later in Rome where his discovery of Italian culture changed the course of his intellectual development. He returned to Paris and received his doctorate writing on theater history. He began publishing his first creative work at the age of 30. At the turn of the century, Rolland began his...
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What happened in Yiddishkayt on this day in history? Who was born today? Whose yortsayt is observed? Learn about major figures in European Jewish culture.
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