Aaron Zeitlin

Aaron Zeitlin (3 June 1898 – 28 September 1973), the son of the famous Jewish writer Hillel Zeitlin and Esther Kunin, authored several books on Yiddish literature, poetry and parapsychology.

Biography

Zeitlin was born in Uvarovichi, Russia (now Belarus). He spent his formative years in Gomel and Vilna. In 1920, he and his brother Elchanan traveled to Palestine, and in 1921 they returned to Eastern Europe, settling in Warsaw.

Zeitlin's literary abilities were apparent already in his youth when he contributed some articles to the Odessa-based children's journal Perachim and Hashachar.

His first publication was a fictional piece that appeared in the journal Di yidishe velt (די ייִדישע װעלט "The Jewish World"), in 1914. His first published books of Yiddish poetry were Matatron (1922) and Shotns oyfn shney (Shadows on Snow; 1923).[1]

In the 1920s to 1930s, he published short stories, as well as many philosophical and journalistic essays, and pieces of literary and cultural criticism.[2]

In 1939, Zeitlin accepted an invitation from Maurice Schwartz, the director of the Yiddish Art Theatre, to come to New York to work on the company's production of his play Esterke;[2] prevented from returning home by the beginning of the Second World War, Zeitlin settled in New York permanently.[1]

His play Chelmer Chachomim had already opened to critical acclaim at the Yiddish Theatre in New York prior to his arrival, and he slowly became a fixture of the Yiddish scene.

For a time, he was also Professor of Hebrew literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, in New York.

He was close with other Yiddish literary giants of his day, including Isaac Bashevis Singer who wrote of the former "his greatest vice was literature, religious literature and anything and everything of intellectual value, he was a man possessing vast knowledge, a veritable spiritual giant".

He wrote the famous Yiddish song Donna Donna, whose music was composed by Sholom Secunda.

In 1969 Zeitlin and Abraham Sutzkever were the first recipients of the Itzik Manger Prize for Yiddish letters.[3]

After WWII, Zeitlin married Rachel Wolfowski, a widow who hailed from Vilna. Her son from her previous marriage was famed Jewish philanthropist Zev Wolfson.

Zeitlin died in Queens, New York, at the age of 75.[4]

Published works

Ha-meziut ha-aheret (The other Dimension), Tel Aviv: Yavneh, 1967. Parapsychologia murchevet (Expanded Parapsychology), Tel Aviv: Yavneh, 1973. Poems of the Holocaust and Poems of Faith [ed./trans. Morris Faierstein] (iUniverse), 1-217 (122, emended), 2007

Sources
  • Alpert, Reuven. Caught In The Crack, Wandering Soul Press, 2002. pp. 151
  • Faierstein, Morris M. trans. and Ed., "Poems of the Holocaust and Poems of Faith" By Aaron Zeitlin. iuniverse: New York, 2007.

References
  1. "Zeitlin, Aaron." Encyclopaedia Judaica. 2nd ed. Edited by Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. Vol. 21, p. 496. Retrieved via Gale eBooks database, May 22, 2020.
  2. Krutikov, Mikhail, and Pinsker, Shachar (June 27, 2011). "Zeitlin Family." YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  3. Weisgal, Meyer (1971). Meyer Weisgal ... so far; an autobiography. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. p. 320. ISBN 9780394475943.
  4. "Aaron L. Zeitlin, a Jewish Writer". nytimes.com. The New York Times. 30 September 1973. Retrieved 7 August 2020.
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