rubin/david

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

David Rubin

Born on 7 September 1893 in Karlsburg (Gura Futnei), Bukovina. Due to the fact that there weren't any cheders or melamdim, he was sent to his grandparents, the shokhet (ritual slaughterer) Meir Rubin, in Gurahumora, where he learned Tenach and completed a folkshul. The middle school he had already completed with an award in Radevits. The First World War broke out, and R., a soldier, old in Russian geangenshat, shpart on azsh until Siberia, from where he initially came back at the end of 1919. In his book "Fun amol un fun haynt" (Bucharest, 1963), we find a whole range of types, events and images of those days.

In 1922 R. who had in captivity learned French, completed the university as a doctor of philosophy and became a lyceum professor of French and German, and in the years 1930-1931 he issued two French teaching books for the first class of the middle school.

His pedagogical activity hindered his collaboration in the local literary pedagogical journals, and in the "Czernowitzer Bleter". After the Second World War, as a professor in Bucharest, he became a frequent contributor to the Bucharest "Ikuf-shtime", and New York's "Morgn frayhayt". In 1951 there was published in Bucharest his volume of stories "Lebn der brayter zeg".

In 1945 in the publishing house "Bikhurim" in Bucharest, there was published in Romanian his "Dos yidishe folks-lid" (221 pp.)

with ten melodies. That is the first attempt to familiarize the Romanian reader in book form with Yiddish folk songs and melodies. Especially there was in the book interesting the ghetto and camp songs of Romanian Jews, published for the first time.

In the theatre season 1952-1953 in Bucharest's Jewish State Theatre, there was staged R.'s translation of Moliere's comedy "Der khlumrshter kranker". In the season of 1953-1954 his translation of "Perzenlekhe motivn" by Stefan Herion. In the 1957-1958 (together with Sholom Rubinger-Luger and A. Shpigelblat) "Dos tagebukh fun anna frank". In the season 1958-1959 translated for "Retshital fun ferzn, gezang un tants" a fragment of Dudzhen Zhegelenu's(?) poem "Der shmeykhl fun hiroshima", and in the 1961-1962 season -- "Merkaresh" by Honore de Balzac.

R.'s one-acter "Mayn khaver, mayn fraynd" (published in Bucharest's "Veg-veyzer", N' 11-12, November-December 1951) was staged by the dramatic circles by "Ikuf" in Bucharest, Sighet, Mimishara, etc.

"Julian Schwartz -- Der shreyber un folklorist dovid rubin, "Folks shtime', Warsaw, 18 March 1967.

Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 7, page 6249.