Yiddishkayt | vilna

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...

Today in Yiddishkayt… February 5 Birthday of Dr. Zemach Szabad, Physician and Activist Physician, children’s health advocate, and community activist Dr. Zemach Szabad was born February 5, 1864 in Vilna. Szabad began his career as a doctor providing care and support to Jews whose shtetlach were devastated by World War One. When the war ended, Szabad played an active role in public life, quickly becoming one of the most prominent figures in the city, working to improve the health of the Jewish community—especially children and women—and participating in numerous cultural projects...

Today in Yiddishkayt… January 24 Birthday of Ayzik Meyer Dik, Yiddish Author Ayzik Meyer Dik (also known by his acronymic pseudonym Amad) was born in Vilna on January 24, 1814. He received a traditional Jewish education and married young, settling in the Litvish town of Zupran (today Жупраны, Belarus). When his first wife died childless, he married the daughter of a wealthy khosid from Nesvizh (today, Нясьвіж) who supported the couple despite Dik’s aversion to Hasidim. Dik considered both Hasidism and lack of Western education to be the most destructive influences on...

Today in Yiddishkayt… January 20 Yortsayt of Avrom Sutzkever, Poet and Partisan January 20 marks the second anniversary of the death of the great Yiddish poet Avrom Sutzkever, who died in Tel Aviv at the age of 96. He was born on July 15, 1913 in Smorgon (today Smarhoń, Belarus) about 60 miles from Vilna . He published his first work in the Jewish Scouts magazine and became a part of the writer and artist circle called יונג װילנע (Young Vilna). After the German invasion in the summer of 1941, Sutzkever and his wife Freydke used the guise of forced labor to help smuggle arms...

Today in Yiddishkayt… January 3 Yortsayt of Ber Zalkind, Artist Ber Zalkind was born in 1878 in the city of Vilna and died 68 years ago today on January 3, 1944 near Bukhara, Uzbekistan. Zalkind was a major part of the visual art scene in his hometown. As a young man, he studied painting in Paris where he was hevily influenced by Impressionism. Hee returned to Vilna where he helped found the Vilna Arts Society and served as its secretary. Zalkind also taught at the city’s schools and was an art critic for the Vilner Tog and Etyudn both based in Vilna, and wrote essays on art and...