Zeydl Shmuel-Yehuda Helman (Yiddish: זײדל שמואל-יהודיה העלמאַן, c. 1855 – c. 1938), who often published under the pen nameHazman (הזמ״ן), was a Romanian Jewish actor, songwriter, journalist, and educator.[1][2][3][4][5] In addition to working as an actor in the Yiddish theatre in Romania and in the United States, he wrote and published a large number of Yiddish theatre songs which were widely performed in the late nineteenth century, making him one of the earliest popular songwriters in the genre.[5][4]
Helman was born in Iași, Romania in 1855.[3][4][5] His birth name was Shmuel-Yehuda, but he took on the name Zeydl after a childhood illness.[6] His father had been a Hazzan but died when Helman was young.[3] His mother remarried and his stepfather wanted him to become a shoichet (ritual slaughterer), but due to his interest in music he became a Hazzan and music teacher in Jewish schools instead.[6][5][3] Around 1890, he became an actor in the Yiddish theatre and began to compose many songs which became popular in Romania.[2][3][4] Among his better-known pieces were Yismekhu, Tsions tsvue, Gedenk zhe, yankl, and Ervakh, srolik; he also wrote Yiddish and Hebrew language poems.[5][4][3] He also taught himself German and Romanian and sometimes translated works from those languages into Yiddish.[7][3][1]
In 1893 Abba Sheyngold brought Helman to the United States to become a Yiddish theatre actor there under the name Helmanesko.[8] He played a few seasons in New York City and Philadelphia, including at the Romanian Opera House with Jacob Adler and at Boris Thomashefsky's theater.[2][4] However, he could not get used to life there and soon returned to Romania.[4][3]
Cover page of Hamwasser (Iași, 1903)
Upon returning to Iași he became very involved in literary and theater life once again.[1] He wrote a number of theatrical works: Bal shem (a play in five acts, staged in Iași with Kalman Juvelier in 1891–1892), Bal nes (four acts, staged in Iași with Juvelier in 1893), Pantilemon, and Ruth, a five-act opera which was never staged, Gog umogeg (a revue staged in Iași in 1920), Der yarid in himl (a one-act play), and Dos litvakl.[5][4][9] He also wrote for and edited a number of newspapers and magazines: Hayoyets, Folksblat, Yudishe Tsukunft, and Hamevaser, Helman's own literary magazine which he published from 1903 onwards.[1][6][5] For some time in the 1890s he also quit the theater and became a Hazzan in a synagogue again, although he soon returned to Yiddish songwriting.[2]
Zeydl Helman
Although he was not really a socialist, he also worked as editor for the socialist magazines Lumina and later Der veker (not to be confused with the later newspaper of the same name Der Veker (Minsk)).[1] He published semi-autobiographical booklets in the 1920s, titled Kitve hazman and Yontev bleter.[6][1]
He became blind late in life and apparently died in Iași in 1938.[10]
References
1 2 3 4 5 6 Kara, I. (1997). Contribuții la istoria obștii evreilor din Iași (in Romanian). Bucharest: Editura Hasefer. pp.54–8. ISBN9789739235211.
_Hellman.jpg)
