Chaverim,

For over a year now I have been translating Yiddish-language
biographies (into English) >from Zalmen Zylbercweig's seven-volume
"Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre", published between 1931 and 1969 (the
seventh volume was never published). A biography may be a single line
in lengths or dozens of pages. These are mostly biographies (2,816 in all)
of those once involved in some way with the Yiddish theatre, i.e. not just
actors and actresses, but playwrights, theatre reviewers, journalists,
theatre managers, prompters, directors, et al. The fifth volume is the
"memorial" volume, i.e. it contains nearly five hundred biographies of
those once involved in the Yiddish theatre who perished in the Holocaust.

To date I have translated nearly 1,800 of these biographies, and of course
I'd like to accelerate my translations for lack of volunteers. Regardless,
all of these translations are now online and are easily accessible via the
Museum's website. Links to each biography appears on both a single page
and on individual pages dedicated to the volume in which the particular
bio appears. Next to each name is the town listed as the location where
the person was born. Naturally, since the beginning of the 20th century,
borders have changed (most often I list the Yiddish spelling of the town,
ie. as it's listed in the "Lexicon", not as we may know it today), so the
town name may or may one that is familar to you. Also, a town or city
that might be listed at the beginning of each translation might as being
in one country at the time of the person's birth, but may now be in a
different country. You'll have to determine this if you're interested.

Thus, for those who have an interest in a particular country city or town,
especially those with KehilaLinks pages, may be interested in visiting this
exhibition. Any KehilaLinks page owner may create a link to any of my
Museum webpages (though for my own interest I'd like to be notified of
this). Note that I said a "link" is okay, but to copy and paste the material
onto one's own KehilaLinks page is not. You can only imagine the variety
and number of towns that are listed, since there have been so many
biographies translated to date. There are undoubtedly those KehilaLinks
page owners who would like to include more material only their pages,
albeit links to pertinent pages and not the actual material. So this is my
offer to you. You will find most of those biographied were born in Eastern
Europe, though there are those listed who were born in Western Europe,
America (U.S. and Canada), etc., who are biographied too.

I will be adding more biographies along the way and will list any new
translations on my site's Site Map page as I go along, so that you can see
what new bios have been translated, i.e. without having to rescan my list
with great tedium. I would just ask that you write to me first so we can
discuss how you will list the link and to which biographies. You can link
to as many bios as you wish -- the more people that know about the
people biographied, the better. There are a great many biographies listed
for larger cities such as Warsaw, Lemberg, Lodz, Odessa, Vilna et al, as
well as hundreds and hundreds more.

Reading these biographies is a wonderful way of learning about the past,
i.e. world events, social and political movements, how Jews educated their
children and how they worked, how they migrated (and immigrated), etc.

I must admit that my Yiddish-English translations are not perfect (as I am
not a "professional" translator), but they are generally pretty good.
Spellings, in general, follow YIVO orthographic standards, though when
appropriate, I spell a person's name using the spelling that is most
commonly known.

I would also recommend you visit my entire Zylbercweig exhibition
(accessible via the Site Map page or by clicking on the image on top of my
site's main page). You should also visit my "On the Air!" radio program,
and my "Lives in the Yiddish Theatre: Tributes to a Bygone Era".

You can find the aforementioned list of nearly 1,800 biographies at
www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/yt/lex-biography.htm. The listings are
organized by first letter of the person's surname.

Any questions, just ask!

Regards,
Steven Lasky
www.museumoffamilyhistory.com
blog: http://museumoffamilyhistory.blogspot.com
steve@museumoffamilyhistory.com