Avrom Reyzen

Avrom Reyzen
Hersch Dovid Nomberg, Chaim Zhitlovsky, Scholem Asch, Isaac Leib Peretz, Avrom Reyzen during the Czernowitz-Conference. (Czernowitz Conference, 1908)
Born	Avrom Reyzen 1876 Koidanov, Belorussia
Died	1953 (aged 76–77) New York City, New York
Nationality	Russian
Other names	Abraham Reisen
Occupation	Yiddish writer, poet, and editor

Avrom Reyzen (Abraham Reisen) (1876 – 1953) was a Yiddish writer, poet and editor, and the elder brother of the Yiddishist Zalman Reisen.

Reyzen was born in Koidanov (Minsk, eastern Belorussia). Supported by Yaknehoz (pseudonym of Yeshaye Nisn Hakoyen Goldberg), while in his early teens Reyzen sent articles to Dos Yudishes folks-blat in St Petersburg, Russia.

He corresponded with Jacob Dinezon and I. L. Peretz. In 1891, they published Reyzen’s poem Ven dos lebn is farbitert (When Life Is Embittered) in their Di yudishe bibliotek (The Yiddish Library). His first story, A kapore der noz abi a goldener zeyger mit 300 rubl nadn (Damn the Nose, As Long As There Is a Dowry of a Watch and 300 Rubles) was published in Vilna in 1892.

In 1895, he joined the Russian army, serving in a musicians’ unit until 1899.

In addition to writing for the Zionist Der yud, in 1900 Reyzen created the literary anthology Dos tsvantsikste yorhundert (The Twentieth Century) which included work by I. L. Peretz, Hersh Dovid Nomberg, David Pinski, and others. A believer in the socialist ideology, Reyzen wrote for the Bund, sometimes under the pseudonym M. Vilner, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In 1902, Reyzen published a poetry collection, Tsayt lider (Poems of the Time), and in 1903 issued a book of stories, Ertseylungen un bilder (Stories and Scenes). He wrote for Der fraynd and Der tog in St Petersburg.

A founder (with his brother Zalman, Chaim Zhitlovsky, I.L. Peretz, and his close friends Scholem Asch and Hersch Dovid Nomberg) of Yiddishism, he took part in the Czernowitz Yiddish Language Conference of 1908 at which Yiddish was proclaimed a national language of the Jews.