Jacklin, Sore (Sarah Hammer)
December 17, 1905–October 30, 1975
She was born in Noworadomska, Poland. In 1914 she moved with her parents to Canada. She studied in a secular school in Toronto and Jewish subjects with a private tutor. From an early age she was captivated by a desire to act in Yiddish theater. She had already begun at age sixteen to perform on the Yiddish stage, and she traveled with a troupe across the United States and Canada.
At that time she also began to write, and in 1934 she published for the first time, a story serialized in several parts in Tog (Day) in New York, entitled “A sHap-Meydl” (A Sweatshop Girl). Thereafter she published her stories in: Tsukunft (Future), Idisher Kemfer (Jewish Fighter), Tog, Forverts (Forward), Amerikaner (American), Vayter (Further), Kinder-Zhurnal (Children’s Journal), and Nyu-yorker Vokhnblat (New York Weekly Newspaper), All in New York; Yidishe Tsaytung (Jewish Newspaper) and Shpigl (Mirror) in Buenos Aires; Keneder Adler in Montreal; Der Veg (The Way) in Mexico City; Idishe Zhurnal (Jewish Journal) in Toronto; and elsewhere.
Among her books: Lebns un Geshtaltn, Dertseylungen (Lives and Likenesses, Stories) (New York, 1946), 320 pp.; Shtamen un Tsvaygn (Trunks and Branches) (New York, 1954), 224 pp.
“Sarah Jacklin-Hammer sets a piquant tenor,” noted Sh. Rozhanski, “but not glibly for the sake of piquancy and not solely to grab her readers’ attention: behind her feminine temperament lies the temperament of a young Jewish woman from a Hassidic home in Poland.”
She was living in New York where she died.
Sources: M. Maze, in Keneder Adler (Montreal) (January 18, 1946); M. Ts. Frank, in Forverts (New York) (November 3, 1946); Dr. Sh. Margoshes, in Tog (New York) (January 23, 1948; November 19, 1954); N. Shemen, in Idishe Zhurnal (Toronto) (February 10, 1949); Dr. L. Zhitnitski, in Di Prese (Buenos Aires) (September 16, 1951); Y. Botoshanski, in Di Prese (September 27, 1951; May 10, 1956); Sh. D. Zinger, in Tog (August 19, 1951); Sh. Rozhanski, in Yidishe Tsaytung (Buenos Aires) (October 4, 1951); Kh. L. Fuks, in Unzer Shtime (Paris) (March 5, 1954); Y. Varshavski, in Forverts (?) (June 19, 1954); A. Almi, in Fraye Arbeter Shtime (New York) (October 22, 1954); Y. Bronshteyn, in Keneder Adler (November 8, 1954); Bronshteyn, Unter Eyn Dakh (Under One Roof) (Los Angeles, 1956), pp. 173-81; R. Nevadovski, in Tsukunft (August 1955); B. Graubard, in Der Veg (Mexico City) (February 15, 1955); Der Lebediker, in Tog (November 27, 1955); R. Feldman, in Afrikaner Idishe Tsaytung (Johannesburg) (May 4, 1956); Sh. Slutski, Avrom Reyzen Biblyografye (Avrom Reyzen’s Bibliography) (New York, 1956), no. 5315; B. Daymondshteyn, Eseyen (Essays) (Tahonga, California, 1958), pp. 29-30.