OSHER-ZELIG VAYS

OSHER-ZELIG VAYS

            He was born in Michalovce, Hungary, into a poor family.  He studied in Sighet and Munkács where he was a wedding entertainer, a student, and a successor to the entertainer Hirsh-Leyb Sigeter (Gotlib).  He was the author of popular novels and storybooks in Yiddish and of a great quantity of songs (to which he wrote his own music), which were sung by Jewish craftsmen and peasants in Carpathian Russia.  He was also the author of humorous and satirical couplets, farces, and one-act plays which he would stage with amateurs in honor of Purim and Simchat Torah.  A number of his pieces for Purim plays were written by him and Kalmen Shuster (known as Kalmen Purim for short) and were published in book form under the title Aktuele purim-shpiln (Genuine Purim plays) (Munkács, 1925), 32 pp.  He was also the author of the play (published in Romanized script) Der munkatsh-belzer kheyrem (The Munkács-Belz ban), “original and very humorous in four acts for a Purim play and family enjoyment” (Pustakosh, ca. 1927), 20 pp.  He published poems and humorous sketches in the weekly newspapers, Tsien (Zion) and Di varhayt (The truth) in Sighet-Marmației, and in Der munkatsher humorist (The Munkács humorist), of which he was also editor in Sighet (1924-1927).  He contributed as well to the anthology Munkatsher humorist (Sighet, 1927), 250 pp.  Other biographical details remain unknown.

Sources: Z. Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidish teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 1, under the category “Wedding entertainers and actors,” p. 134; Sh. Y. Dorfzon, in Forverts (New York) (February 1, 1931).

Khayim Leyb Fuks