Younger brother of Avraham Gachanski. His
father was a furniture maker.
Motl Saktsier writes:
"He was not a simple carpenter.
He was a furniture maker, and furthermore a carpenter
with a mania.... the mania of an artist. If the
slightest thing would cause his hands to move, the
spirit o the talent remained, which he had carried
within him. The creations, bikher shrenk, the
credenza was a true antique. With the mirrors in them,
he used to polish them, polish them with blossoms, with
the sickly grapes, with leopards that were given human
forms, and with remarkable creatures-- half-fish and
half-woman. He used to go down into the cellar to his
hublime and doletklekh, it was difficult for
him to aroysgeshlepn from there, even
iberbeysn. He did his work with love, with a holy
zeal. Immediately he carved out not even a gbirishe
ceration, but in contrast a holy ark. ... This avatar,
the drive to creativity, passed to his children from
him, for Avraham's younger brother, Zakaharia, although
in other ways, and also in the end it came to the
theatre."
Saktsier recalls that in his
childhood Z. ran away with a circus. He was a brilliant
dancer. He didn't play badly several musical
instruments, and his character forms in the theatre were
full flavor. He married a 'straw widow' (deserted wife),
who was also a member of the troupe of the two brothers,
who stopped for a long time, when not a disease between
the two sisters-in-law, Liza Bunovka (Zakharia's wife)
and Mintze (Avraham's wife), as to who should play the
title role in "Diseased Soldier." This managed to cause
a breakup of the brother-troupe partnership.
Subsequently Z. performed
with other Yiddish troupes. During the Second World War,
he was evacuated in the Soviet Union and died from
typhus in Samarkand.
His wife lives in Belz, and
his daughter the former actress Gina Zlotaya, married
the former actor and current Jazz player Simon Leibowitz,
who also lives in Belz, where she works in a tailor's
shop.
Sh. E. from
Julian Schwartz.
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Motl Saktsier-- Der yikhes-boym, "Azoy
lebn mir," Moscow, 1964, pages 215-235.
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