Leksikon fun der Nayer Yidisher Literatur

לעקסיקאָן פֿון דער נײַער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור

He was born in Podhaytse (Polish, Podhajce; Ukrainian, Pidhaitsi), Galicia. He studied in religious elementary school and in a Polish elementary school.

In 1923 he came to the United States and worked in a variety of trades. In 1927 he began to study at night at an English-language middle school and was poetry editor of the school magazine, in which he published his own poetry in English. After completing middle school, he attended courses at City College and studied for a year at New York University.

In 1928 he debuted in print with Yiddish poems in

Der Amerikaner (The American) in New York.

In 1931 he began publishing poems in

Frayhayt (Freedom),

later as well in the monthly

Der Hamer (The hammer),

both organs of the left in New York. For a number of years thereafter, he worked as a teacher in the Yiddish children’s schools run by the leftist International Labor Order. In 1932 he became secretary to the editorial board of

Signal (Signal), a journal of Proletpen (Proletarian Pen).

He served in the American army during WWII. In 1948 he was a delegate of American leftist organizations to the cultural conference in Warsaw. He traveled as a delegate in 1963 to Poland for the twentieth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

Sul was the youngest of the group known as the “proletarian poets.” He was lyrical, musical, and imagist even in his political poems and revolutionary posters. He displayed a gift as well for stories for children. A considerable number of items for children were published in

Yungvarg (Youth), a journal of the leftist International Labor Order schools.

Seven of his stories were included in his book

Der Alter fun Lampaduni (The Old Man from Lampaduni), Wrocław: Farlage Nidershlezye, 1948, 58 pp.

Under the name Yuri Suhl, he also published poetry and several volumes of prose which were originally written in English. One of his English books was autobiographical. Another was an artistic biography of Ernestine Rose. Sul was editor of the English-language Jewish magazine

Jewish Currents.

In book form (in Yiddish):

Dos Likht af Mayn Gas (The Light on My Street), drawings by L. Bunin (New York: Signal, 1935), 75 pp.;

Dem Tog Antkegn (Toward the Day) (New York: Signal, 1938), 62 pp.;

Yisroel Partisan, Poeme (Israel, the Partisan, a Poem) (New York: Signal, 1942), 107 pp.;

Der Alter fun Lampaduni (Wrocław: Nidershlezye, 1948), 58 pp., a collection of children’s stories with illustrations by William Gropper;

A Vort fun Treyst, Lider (A Word of Consolation, Poems) (Mexico City: IKUF, 1952), 97 pp.

In English:

One Foot in America (New York: Macmillan, 1951), 260 pp.;

Ernestine L. Rose and the Battle for Human Rights (New York: Reynal and Co., 1959), 310 pp.

He died in Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts.