Graph search
1,092 records
Varshavski, Oyzer
(1898–1944), Yiddish writer, painter, and art critic. Born in Sochaczew, Poland, Oyzer Varshavski received a traditional Jewish education and settled in Warsaw with his family at the age of 14. He was encouraged to write…
yivo
Varshavskii, Avram Moiseevich
(1821–1888), philanthropist, public figure, and businessman. Avram Varshavskii (sometimes spelled Warshawski) was from a wealthy family in Poltava. He had a traditional Jewish education supplemented with secular subjects…
yivo
Vas, István
(1910–1991), poet, translator, essayist, and memoirist. István Vas’s ancestors were small-town rabbis on his father’s side and well-to-do merchants on his mother’s. His father was an eager first-generation assimilationis…
yivo
Vaysenberg, Itshe Meyer
(1881–1938), Yiddish prose writer. Itshe Meyer Vaysenberg (Isaac Meir Weissenberg), was born in Żelechów, Poland, into a working-class family. He attended heder and in his youth was a craftsman. In 1904, Vaysenberg publi…
yivo
Vayter, A.
(also Waiter; pseudonym of Ayzik Meyer Devenishski; ca. 1878–1919); Yiddish writer, political activist, and cultural figure. Born in a shtetl in the Vilna region to a strictly observant family that operated a tavern, Ayz…
yivo
Vendrof, Zalmen
(1877–1971), Yiddish writer. Born in Slutsk, Belorussia, into a family of a ritual slaughterer, Zalmen Vendrof (commonly rendered Zalman Wendroff) received a traditional Talmudic education and studied with private teache…
yivo
Vergelis, Arn
(1918–1999), Yiddish poet, novelist, and editor. Born in Lubar, Ukraine, Arn (or Aron) Vergelis received a secondary Yiddish education in Birobidzhan, where his family lived from 1932. He was noted as a local talent in 1…
yivo
Vertov, Dziga
(1896–1954), documentary film director and film theoretician. The most radical of Soviet montage theorists and father of cinéma verité was born Dovid (later Denis) Kaufman, the son of a Białystok bookseller and a rabbi’s…
yivo
Vevyorke, Avrom
(1887–1935), Yiddish poet, playwright, and critic. Born in Babiak, Poland, Avrom Vevyorke was trained to be a rabbi, but instead became a Labor Zionist and began writing in Yiddish. He made his literary debut with storie…
yivo
Veynger, Mordkhe
(1890–1929), Yiddish linguist and dialectologist; creator of the first atlas of Yiddish-speaking regions. Born in Poltava, Ukraine, Mordkhe Veynger moved as a boy to Warsaw, where he went on to study Germanic philology i…
yivo
Vilenkin, Leyzer
(1894–1985), Yiddish linguist. Born in Horodok, Belorussia, into a poor family, Leyzer Vilenkin worked in Kharkov from 1912. In 1917 he moved to Petrograd, where he studied pedagogy, literature, and linguistics at severa…
yivo
Vinaver, Maksim Moiseevich
(1862–1926), lawyer, politician, and communal activist. Maksim Vinaver (also Vinawer) was born in Warsaw, and in 1886 he graduated with a law degree from Warsaw University. However, in 1889, the Russian government decide…
yivo
Vishniac, Roman
(1897–1990), photographer and biologist. Roman Vishniac’s photographs of East European Jewish life, which he took in the mid- to late 1930s, are today among the most widely familiar images of this “vanished world.” Thoug…
yivo
Vogel, Dvora
(1900–1942), writer, art critic, and philosopher. Dvora Vogel was born in Burshtyn in Galicia into an intellectual family. During World War I, the family fled to Vienna. Upon their return, Vogel attended high school in L…
yivo
Vogler, Elkhonen
(1907–1969), Yiddish poet and essayist. Elkhonen Vogler (born Rozhanski) was a symbolist poet and a leading member of the interwar Yiddish literary group Yung-Vilne. His three volumes of Yiddish verse, A bletl in vint (A…
yivo
Vohryzek, Viktor
(1864–1918), physician, writer on ethics and sociology, journalist, translator, and a leading figure in the Czech Jewish Movement. After completing gymnasium, Viktor Vohryzek studied at the faculty of medicine at Prague …
yivo
Volf, Leyzer
(1910–1943), Yiddish poet. Leyzer Volf (born Mekler), a founding member of the literary group Yung-Vilne, was one of the great parodists in Yiddish poetry. Beloved by local audiences for his outrageous artistic gestures,…
yivo
Volynskii, Akim L’vovich
(Pseudonym of Ḥayim Leibovich Flekser, 1861–1926), literary critic, historian, editor, and art theoretician (especially of ballet). Born in Zhitomir, Akim Volynskii was the son of a bookseller. He studied in a Russian hi…
yivo
Voronca, Ilarie
(1903–1946), poet. Ilarie Voronca (Eduard Marcus) was born in Brăila, Romania. After graduating from law school in Bucharest, he worked for various insurance companies and banks and traveled on several occasions to Paris…
yivo
Vámbéry, Ármin
(1832–1913), explorer, ethnographer, diplomat, and spy. Born Hermann Wamberger (Bamberger) in Szenthyörgy, Ármin Vámbéry attended heder and yeshiva as well as the Protestant elementary school in Dunaszerdahely from age e…
yivo