Shvarts, Julian
May 15, 1910–October 19, 1977
The brother of Itsik Shvarts (Y. Kara)and Simkhe Shvarts, he was born in Podeloy (Podu Iloaiei), Romania. His Jewish first name was Sholem. He received a traditional Jewish education. In Jassy (Iași) he completed a four-level high school. From 1924 he was active in Yiddish theater, first in Iași and later in Bucharest, directed drama circles, performed himself, and translated plays into Yiddish and Romanian. He wrote one-act plays, while at the same time collecting Jewish folklore and folk art (such as tombstones).
In 1926 he began publishing biographies and translation into Romanian for Romanian Jewish newspapers, in 1933 in Tshernovitser Bleter (Czernowitz Newspaper) and from 1945 in almost all Yiddish newspapers in Romania; also in Folks-Shtime (Voice of the People) in Warsaw; Naye Prese (New Press) in Paris; and Yidishe Shprakh (Yiddish Language), Kultur un Lebn (Culture and Life), Yidishe Kultur (Jewish Culture), and Morgn Frayhayt (Morning Freedom) in New York; among others.
In book form:
15 Yidishe Folklorizirte Lider (Fifteen Yiddish Folkloric Poems) (Bucharest: IKUF, 1946), 16 pp.;
Der Farkishefter Shrayber (The Enchanted Writer), a one-act play (Bucharest: Far unzere dramkrayzn, 1947), 20 pp.;
Literarishe Dermonungen (Literary Reminiscences) (Bucharest: Kriteryon, 1975), 213 pp.;
Portretn un Eseyen (Portraits and Essays) (Bucharest, 1979), 264 pp.
He died in Bucharest.
Sources: Sholem Shtern, in Yidishe Kultur (New York) 7 (1976); D. Matis, in Forverts (New York) (August 29, 1976); A. Forsher, in Forverts (September 12, 1976); Elye (Elias) Shulman, in Di Prese (Buenos Aires) (October 26, 1976); Y. Kara, Yunge Yorn un… Veyniker Yunge, Album-Bleter (Young Years and... Not so Young Years, Pages from an Album) (Bucharest, 1980), pp. 194-97.