Itzik Shvarts

[itzik gottesman <gottesman...>]

It is sad news that Itzik Shvarts passed away. His yiddish folklore
contributions to the journal "Bukareshter shriftn" in the 70s and 80s
are important as are his books of memoirs, particularly, "A Moldovish
yingl". He had a very good ethnographic eye. He was one of three
brothers who played important roles in the Yiddish cultural life of
Chernovitz between the wars, and elsewhere after the war. My mother
was his student in the 1930s in the Yiddish school in Chernovitz.

Simkhe Shvarts led a theater troupe, Kameleon-teater, in Chernovitz,
an avant-garde amateur group that was know for stringing together
folksongs into short scenes (a common theatrical idea in Eastern
European Yiddish theater). My mother can recreate a couple of these
scenes. Several of Simkhe Shvartses songs became quite well known,
including "Nakht shikht" "Di tsaytung farkoyfer" which appear in a
collection published by the third brother Yulien Shvarts in the late
40s. However Simkhe is most known for his brilliant yiddish
marionette theater in Paris in the late 40s, early 50s "Hakl Bakl"
for which Chagall did some sets. there is a short film of their
"dovid and golies", based on a folk purim shpil. The jewish Museum in
New York had an exhibition of puppets from this troupe and showed the
film.

Yulien (Julien) also was a writer and published historical and
critical works in Bucharest in the 60s and 70s.

?ÝItzik Gottesman