Sunday 17 December 2017

YITSKHOK NOZHIK (ISAAC NOZIK, NOZYK)

YITSKHOK NOZHIK (ISAAC NOZIK, NOZYK) (April 23, 1889-October 23, 1949)
           He was born in Warsaw.  He studied with itinerant school teachers, in synagogue study halls, and in yeshivas; for secular knowledge, he studied privately.  In his youth he stood with the socialist movement, reading aloud before workers from Yiddish literature and singing labor songs before them.  He was prompter and later an actor in the Yiddish theater in Skierniewice with Abba Kompaneyets and in Warsaw at the Muranów Theater (1908).  In 1919 he himself directed a provincial troupe, and in 1920 he was a theater director in Vilna.  He composed theatrical songs and one-act plays.  From 1926 he wrote dozens of theatrical revue numbers, such as Zloye di rebetsin (Zlote, the rabbi’s wife), Gvald (Help!), Dire-gelt (Apartment rent), and Vu nemt men a khosn (Where do you get a husband?) for the variety theater Sambatyon, which he founded and managed.  In March 1932 the Skala Theater staged his revue Alts vert gekashert (Everything will be made kosher).  Under his own name and the pen names Nozhikov, Sakin, and Yitskhoki, he published numerous articles on the theater in: Unzer leben (Our life) and Dos naye leben (The new life) in Odessa; Di tsayt (The times) in Vilna; Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw; and Zilbertsvayg’s weekly Teater un kunst (Theater and art).  Together with M. Nudelman, he edited a one-off publication Sambatyon.  His published plays in Yiddish included: Reyzele dem rebns, folksshtik in 4 aktn (Reyzele, the rebbe’s [daughter], a people’s piece in four acts (Warsaw, 1926), 60 + 16 pp.; Malkele soldat, folksshtik in 4 aktn (Malkele the soldier, a people’s piece in four acts) (Warsaw: T. Yakubson and M. Goldberg, 1927), 72 pp.  In 1933 he immigrated to the land of Israel.  He died in Tel Aviv.

 

Sources: Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 2 (New York, 1934); M. Vaykhert, Varshe (Warsaw), vol. 2 (Tel Aviv, 1961), pp. 42, 92.
Yankev Kahan


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