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B. (Menachem Berish) Eppelbaum
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Born on 25 September 1887 in
Vukin (Wohyń), near Radzin, Lublin region, Poland, where
his father, a Kotsk Chasid, was a ritual slaughterer. He
received a traditional education. From age five until
fifteen he learned Gemora, also under the supervision of
his father, who took him to learn how to slaughter --
but under the influence of Rambam's books, he became
nspkr and may have op from Chasidic piety.
From childhood on he loved
to read story books, and he later fell under the effect
of Shomer's demons, and had even by himself taken to
writing such novels and also wrote a plpul-book
on "Kidushin".
At age eighteen he left the
town and went away to Warsaw, where he had under
difficult material circumstances learned a little
Russian and Polish, and then in Lodz (also in Warsaw) he
took to various jobs.
1912 -- he debuted with a
story under the title "Tsvey dorot" in the "Lodzer
tageblat", under the direction of Y. Uger. Then --
living in a provincial city -- he began to write
Chasidic stories and folksy stories that were
published in the Yiddish press in Poland and Russia.
After the outbreak of the
World War he settled in Odessa, where he worked for
their Yiddish newspapers. Around 1920 -- he returned to
Warsaw, where he worked for various newspapers, |
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mainly however as a
translator in the "Central" publishing house. At the end
of 1922 -- he traveled to America, where he for the
first time worked for the "Yidishes togeblat", then over
to the "Morning Journal", where he has been a
contributor up to the present day. E. also had the
opportunity to take part in various Yiddish periodical
publications in America and in Hebrew journals in
Europe.
E.'s novel "Oyfbroyz"
(publishing house "Vanderer", Warsaw, 1923) was
dramatized, and in 1925-26 was staged under the name "Mishke
yapontshik" in a Kiev studio theatre. In 1928 e. had by
himself dramatized his novel under the name "Mishke
yaponets", which was never staged.
In "Hamer" (January 1928),
E. published his "Gerangel, a play in nine scenes and
three acts". The play on 12 October 1929 was staged [in
the same scene] through the "Vilna Troupe" in New York,
in an intimate theatre, under the direction of Jacob
Mestel and Jacob Ben-Ami, settings -- Zolotarov, music
-- A. Ellstein.
1917-18 -- E. wrote under a
pseudonym a theatre review in "Dos naye lebn" and in "Komunistishe
shtime" in Odessa.
1928-29 -- He had, under the
pseudonym "Ein-bit", wrote weekly theatre reviews for
the Philadelphia edition of the "Morning Journal".
Sh. E.
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Z. Reyzen --
"Lexicon of Yiddish Literature", Vol. II, pp.
783-793.
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A. Glants -- Di
oyffihrung in'm nayem intimen teater fun der "vilner
trupe", "Tog", N. Y., 19 October 1928.
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Dr. A. Mukdoni --
"Garangel", "Morning Journal", N. Y., 19 October
1928.
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L. Fogelman -- "Gerangel"
-- a naye drame in "intimen teater", "Forward",
N. Y., 26 October 1928.
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