Moyshe Nadir

Born Isaac Rayz in Narayev, Austro-Hungarian Empire (today Narayiv, Ukraine), Moyshe Nadir immigrated to New York City at the age of thirteen. Writing for satirical and comedic papers as a teenager under a variety of pseudonyms, he eventually settled on the pen name Moyshe Nadir. By 1915, he was a regular contributor to the monthly literary journal Literatur un lebn, writing alongside members of Di Yunge group such as Zishe Landau and Moyshe-Leyb Halpern and making a reputation as an irreverent and acerbic humorist. In the 1920s, he was one of several prominent American Yiddish writers to embrace the Communist cause, writing for its outlets including Frayhayt and traveling to the Soviet Union. Later in life, he publicly distanced himself from Soviet Communism.