Graph search
1,092 records
Surits, Iakov Zakharovich
(1882–1952), Soviet diplomat. Born in Dvinsk (Lat., Daugavpils), Iakov Surits became involved in revolutionary activities as early as 1899. A Bundist in 1902 and 1903, he was a Menshevik from 1903 to 1914 and an Internat…
yivo
Sutzkever, Avrom
(1913–2010), Yiddish poet. Born in Smorgon’, a small industrial city southeast of Vilna, Avrom Sutzkever spent his early childhood in Omsk, Siberia, where his parents took refuge from the invading German armies during Wo…
yivo
Sverdlov, Iakov Mikhailovich
(Moiseevich; party pseudonyms Andrei, Maks; 1885–1919), revolutionary and Soviet party figure. Born in Nizhnii Novrgorod to an artisan engraver who also owned a typographical and printing workshop, as a youth Iakov Sverd…
yivo
Szabad, Tsemaḥ
(1864–1935), physician and public figure. Tsemaḥ (Yid., Tsemakh) Szabad was born in Vilna and educated in the traditional Jewish system and in a Russian secondary school. In 1881, he moved to Moscow, completing his medic…
yivo
Szabolcsi, Lajos
(1889–1943), editor and publisher. Lajos Szabolcsi was the son of journalist and editor Miksa Szabolcsi (1857–1915), the brother of music historian Bence Szabolcsi (1899–1973), and the father of literary historian Miklós…
yivo
Szabolcsi, Miksa
(1857–1915), journalist and editor. Born Miksa Weinstein in [Nyír] Tura, Szabolcsi studied at yeshivas in Kemecse, Újfehértó, Érmihályfalva, Püspökladány, and Vác. Later he was a private tutor for children of prominent J…
yivo
Szabó, Ervin
(1877–1918), librarian and socialist theoretician. Ervin Szabó was born in northern Hungary in a region that is now part of Slovakia. He changed his name from Samuel Armin Schlesinger and converted to Calvinism while sti…
yivo
Szerb, Antal
(1901–1945), novelist, critic, and literary historian. Like a number of modern Hungarian literary artists of Jewish origin, Antal Szerb saw himself as a Hungarian writer only, with no significant ties to Jewish culture a…
yivo
Szomory, Dezső
(1869–1944), writer and journalist. Born Mór Weisz in the crowded Jewish quarter of old Pest, Dezső Szomory reinvented himself as an ivory-tower aesthete and a dandy who knew little about the world of crass reality. Of c…
yivo
Szyk, Artur
(1894–1951), artist. Artur Szyk was born in Łódź, at that time a Polish, Jewish, and German city under Russian rule. He studied art in Paris and Kraków, and during World War I and its aftermath took part in the armed str…
yivo
Szymel, Maurycy
(1903–1942), Polish and Yiddish poet, prose writer, translator, critic, and publicist. Maurycy (Mosheh) Szymel was born into an Orthodox family in Lwów, where he graduated from high school. He made his literary debut in …
yivo
Szép, Ernő
(1884–1953), poet, novelist, playwright, and journalist. In a letter written to fellow writer Gyula Krúdy, the young Ernő Szép lamented: “Why did I have to be poor and Jewish?” The son of a schoolteacher and one of nine …
yivo
Sándor, Pál
(1860–1936), liberal politician and economist. Pál Sándor studied in Budapest at the Commercial Academy, the alma mater of many Hungarian Jewish youngsters at that time. He supplemented his education with studies in Dres…
yivo
Săucan, Mircea
(1928–2003), film director and writer. Born in Paris of a Jewish mother and Romanian father, both Romanian immigrants, Săucan spent his early childhood among Jewish immigrants in France. The family moved to Prague, where…
yivo
Słonimski, Antoni
(1895–1976), poet, writer, playwright, publicist, and theater and film critic. Antoni Słonimski was the grandson of Ḥayim Zelig Słonimski, a prominent Warsaw maskil, mathematician, astronomer, inventor, and publisher of …
yivo
Słonimski, Ḥayim Zelig
(1810–1904), author of scientific texts in Hebrew; inventor; principal of the Zhitomir Rabbinical Seminary; and founder and editor of the journal Ha-Tsefirah (The Dawn). As was the case with many nineteenth-century maski…
yivo
Słucki, Arnold
(1920–1972), poet, publicist, and translator. Born into an Orthodox family in Tyszowce, near Lublin, Arnold Słucki (originally Aron Kreiner) attended the State Seminary for Teachers of Judaism in Warsaw between 1934 and …
yivo
Tairov, Aleksandr Iakovlevich
(1885–1950), theater director, founder of the Kamernyi Theater in Moscow. Aleksandr Tairov (originally Kornblit) was born into a teacher’s family in the town of Romny, Poltava province. He gained his first theatrical exp…
yivo
Tal’, Mikhail Nokhem’evich
(1936–1992), eighth world chess champion. Born in Riga, Mikhail Tal’ learned to play chess from his father, a physician, at the age of seven. A meeting with chess master Aleksandr Koblents (1916–1993) played a decisive r…
yivo
Tamares, Aharon Shemu’el
(1869–1931), rabbi, essayist, and advocate of nonviolence. Born in a village in the Grodno district, Aharon Shemu’el Tamares (who often signed his publications with the pseudonym Aḥad ha-Rabanim ha-Margishim) studied at …
yivo