A Cityful of Jews

Shloyme Bikl

1943

The man was a ferment of intelligence and emotion. He could not grow accustomed to the conventional life of the common herd. He thought differently from all the others and disliked collective thinking and action. He rebelled against the majority and its established order. Of course, years ago in a pious, even ultra-pious, Jewish community, the…

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Creator Bio

Shloyme Bikl

1896–1969

An essayist, critic, and champion of Yiddish writing, Shloyme Bikl was born in Ustechko, Galicia (present-day Ukraine), and received both a traditional Jewish and a secular education. After earning a law degree at Chernivtsi University in 1922, he lived in Bucharest, where he practiced law and wrote and edited literary publications. He was a regular contributor to the Warsaw weekly Literarishe bleter. After he moved to New York in 1939, Bikl was a leading figure in Yiddish writers’ circles, and he served on the editorial boards of several Yiddish-language newspapers and journals, as well as on the board at YIVO.

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