SHPIGLBLAT, ALEKSANDER

SHPIGLBLAT, ALEKSANDER (Spiegelblatt ; 1927– ), Yiddish poet and essayist. Born in Kimfolung (Campulung), Bukovina, Romania, he was interred with his family in work camps in Transnistria in 1941–43. After the war he studied at Bucharest University and in 1954–8 lectured there on Russian literature. In 1964 he settled in Israel and was editorial-staff secretary of Di*Goldene Keyt from 1972 until its closure in 1995. He first published in the Bucharest Ikuf-Bleter (Ikuf = Jewish Culture Association) in 1950 and there issued a volume of verse entitled Heymland ("Homeland," 1952). In Israel he published five volumes of verse: Umruike Oysyes ("Restless Letters," 1969); Papirene Zeglen ("Paper Sails," 1973); Volknbremen ("Cloudy Brows," 1979; Neshome-Likht ("Soul Light," 1997); In Geln Tsvishn-Likht fun Erev Regn ("In the Yellow Twilight before the Rain," 1998). The last volume includes poems written in Romania up to 1964, published in his other volumes and in Di Goldene Keyt, and translations into and from Yiddish in several languages. In 2000 he published a moving personal memoir of the Transnistria nightmare of Romanian Jewry: Durkhn Shpaktiv fun a Zeyger-Makher ("Through the Lens of a Watchmaker," 2000). He also authored an informal study of fellow Romanian Itsik Manger: Bloe Vinklen: Itsik Manger, Lebn, Lid un Balade ("Blue Corners: Itsik Manger, Life, Song and Ballad," 2002); a collection of three stories, Shotns Klapn in Shoyb ("Shadows Knock on the Window," 2003); and a novel, Krimeve; an Altfrenkishe Mayse ("Krimeve; An Old-fashioned Tale," 2005). His prose has a winning simplicity, clarity and directness; his verse is concision itself.

bibliography:

lnyl, 8 (1981), 784–5.

[Leonard Prager (2^nd ed.)]