landis/joseph

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

Joseph Landis

Born on 24 August 1917 in New York, America.

He graduated from the Sholem Aleichem Folks Institute, and in 1940 was an aspirant to YIVO (Yiddish Scientific Institute), and from 1938 until 1940 directed with the Workmen's Circle alumni clubs.

1937 -- Bachelor of Arts from New York City College, 1939, there, Master of Science in Education, 1951 received a doctorate in English and American Literature in New York University (NYU).

From 1942 until 1946 he served in the American army. L. in the Spring of 1946 was a teacher of English literature in the city university in Salt Lake City (Utah), and in September 1946 was appointed to the faculty of Queens College in New York, where he was a professor of English and director of Stories.

In 1959 L. taught at Queens College in the English Department, a course in English translation from Yiddish literature, and he has directed since then an intermediate course. In 1966, at the same time, he was appointed as a guest professor of Y. D. Berg-Fond for Yiddish literature in Brandeis University, where he gave courses in Yiddish literature in Yiddish and English.

L. published articles aboutYiddish and English American literature in English and Yiddish journals.

In 1966 in the publishing house of "Bantam Books" (New York, Toronto, London), there was published the book "The Dybbuk and

Other Great Yiddish Plays" that was included in L.'s translation of Anski's "Dybbuk" (performed in the translation in America and England), [another English translation of Henry G. Alsberg and Winfred Katsin was published in 1926 in New York] Hirshbein's "Grine felder", Asch's "God of Vengeance" (staged in 1967 in Los Angeles), Pinski's "Dovid hamelekh un zeyne veyber", and Leivick's "Golem" (performed on 30 November 1967 by the theatre group of Brooklyn College under the direction of Professor Joe Davidson). Each of the plays had an introduction by L. about the author and the play.

L. is a lecturer on Yiddish and English, a society ward (eskn) and vice-president of the Yiddish Cultural Congress. His wife, Lora, the daughter of social activist and Workmen's Circle director Benjamin Gebiner, is active in the Education Department of the faculty in New York's Brooklyn College.

Sh. E.

Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 6, page 4871.