Lives in the Yiddish Theatre
SHORT BIOGRAPHIES OF THOSE INVOLVED IN THE Yiddish THEATRE
aS DESCRIBED IN zALMEN zYLBERCWEIG'S "lEKSIKON FUN YIDISHN TEATER"

1931-1969
 

Yehuda Hersh Shayak

 

Born on 10 April 1892 in Vlotslavek, Poland. Father -- a merchant. Received a strong religious education, after his father's death, at the age of twelve years, he entered into a municipal folkshul, where he learned Russian, Polish and German. At the age of fifteen, he went away to Warsaw, where he worked for various artisans, and as an electrical mechanic, he lost his right foot, and he became a teacher of Yiddish and Polish. At age eighteen he went away to Germany, then to relatives in Paris and from there to London.

In 1912 he began his literary activity with songs and accounts in London's weekly paper "Der fonograf", and in the London press with articles and reviews about Yiddish theatre in London. Then he became a contributor to the London newspaper "Di tsayt". 1915 -- issued and edited a literary monthly journal "Yugend shtrahlen". Since October 1916 areas of habitual places (?), earlier in Copenhagen, then Stockholm, Danzig, where he edited the "Danitsiger leben", then "Dantsiger togblat", Berlin, and since 1927 he returned to London, where he took over the reciting of the oldest Yiddish newspaper in Europe, "Di post". The entire time of his wanderings, he was active as a writer and journalist in Yiddish and also in Danish. For the Second World War, S. settled in Sidney, Australia.

S. translated the "Letster kapitl" and "Vagenbundn" of Knute Hamsun, and the novel "Maria" by Peter Nansen.

 

S. wrote the two-act "Der redaktor", which in 1915 was staged in London, and the play "Ven der friling ervakht", which in 1916 was performed in London's "Pavilion" Theatre, and translated the play "Daniel Herts" by Henry Nathanson, and "The Two Brothers" by Herman Bang.

In August 1958, S. passed away in Sidney, Australia.

  • Z. Reyzen -- "Lexicon of Yiddish Literature", Vilna 1929, V. 4, pp. 439-440.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 6, page 4989.
 

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