David Pinski
| David Pinski | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
April 5, 1872 Mogilev, Russian Empire |
| Died | August 11, 1959 (aged 87) Israel |
David Pinski (April 5, 1872 – August 11, 1959) was a Yiddish language writer, probably best known as a playwright. At a time when Eastern Europe was only beginning to experience the industrial revolution, Pinski was the first to introduce to its stage a drama about urban Jewish workers; a dramatist of ideas, he was notable also for writing about human sexuality with a frankness previously unknown to Yiddish literature. He was also notable among early Yiddish playwrights in having stronger connections to German language literary traditions than Russian.
He was born in Mogilev, in the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus), and was raised in nearby Vitebsk. At 19 he left home, originally intending to study medicine in Vienna, Austria, but a visit to I.L. Peretz in Warsaw (then also under Russian control, now the capital of Poland) convinced him to pursue a literary career instead. He briefly began studies in Vienna (where he also wrote his first significant short story, "Der Groisser Menshenfreint"—"The Great Philanthropist"), but soon returned to Warsaw, where he established a strong reputation as a writer and as an advocate of Labor Zionism, before moving to Berlin, Germany in 1896 and to New York City in 1899.
In 1904, he nearly received a doctorate from Columbia University, but his play Family Tsvi premiered on the day set for his Ph.D. examination. He failed to show up for the exam, and never received his doctorate.
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