Abraham Weisbaum

Abraham Weisbaum (b. Avrom Vaysboym) was born in Konskowola (near Lublin), Poland, where he had a traditional Hasidic education at a local heder and yeshiva. During World War I, he ended up in Harbin, China, where he worked in Avrom Fishzon’s Yiddish theater, first as a prompter and later as an actor, traveling with the troupe to Shanghai. From there, he moved to Mexico City in 1925 and began contributing to local Yiddish newspapers. His biting satires of Jewish Mexican arrivistes were collected in two volumes published in Yiddish in 1947 and 1959. Weisbaum remained in Mexico City for the rest of his life.