Shmuel "Munye" Nadler, a poet, was born to Hasidic parents Simcha Leib Nadler and Sisla Schaffer in what was then Gliniany, a small town in the Austrian province of Galicia. His birth record shows 28 November 1908 as his date of birth, but Serge Klarsfeld's memorial, listed below, says 27 October 1908.
After attending both yeshiva and public schools in Gliniany, Nadler studied at the famed Lublin Yeshiva. He went on to write poetry in Aramaic and Hebrew for numerous publications and in 1933 he published Besht-symfoniye, the Baal Shem Tov Symphony -- a tribute in prose and poetry to the founder of Hasidism. His early work, which showed some fidelity to tradition, appealed to some young religious readers, but less so to their elders.
By the end of 1933, Nadler had cut off his beard and peyes (side curls) and left the religious world. His poems were increasingly left-wing and his criticisms of the Orthodox shocked that community. He was soon to announce at a public event in Warsaw that he had become a Communist. His announcement was followed by a scream from his brother, a Hasidic rabbi, "For me you are dead!"
Immediately after the episode, Nadler left for Paris to work for Di Naye Prese, a new Communist Yiddish paper, and he eventually became its editor, using the nickname "Munye" instead of the biblical name he was given at birth.
Nadler was still in Paris when World War II broke out. After the Nazis occupied Paris, he published underground French and Yiddish newspapers -- an activity for which he was murdered by the Nazis. He was executed at Mont-Valerein, a 19th century fortress in Suresnes, a suburb west of Paris, where over 1,000 members of the French resistance were executed by the Wehrmacht between 1941 and 1944.
He wrote this poem while facing his death:
You shouldn't say Kaddish at my grave,
And don't light candles for my soul,
This flourishing, fruitful life
Is our purpose on the earth
===
Sources include:
o Eddy Portnoy, "Politics and Poesy" (Tablet, 18 March 2010)
o Yiddish Leksikon
o Jewish Records Indexing-Poland (source of birth date and parents' names)
o Serge Klarsfeld, Le Memorial de la Deportation des Juifs de France (source of death date and location)
o Yad Vashem's Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names (confirmation of birth place and father's name)
After attending both yeshiva and public schools in Gliniany, Nadler studied at the famed Lublin Yeshiva. He went on to write poetry in Aramaic and Hebrew for numerous publications and in 1933 he published Besht-symfoniye, the Baal Shem Tov Symphony -- a tribute in prose and poetry to the founder of Hasidism. His early work, which showed some fidelity to tradition, appealed to some young religious readers, but less so to their elders.
By the end of 1933, Nadler had cut off his beard and peyes (side curls) and left the religious world. His poems were increasingly left-wing and his criticisms of the Orthodox shocked that community. He was soon to announce at a public event in Warsaw that he had become a Communist. His announcement was followed by a scream from his brother, a Hasidic rabbi, "For me you are dead!"
Immediately after the episode, Nadler left for Paris to work for Di Naye Prese, a new Communist Yiddish paper, and he eventually became its editor, using the nickname "Munye" instead of the biblical name he was given at birth.
Nadler was still in Paris when World War II broke out. After the Nazis occupied Paris, he published underground French and Yiddish newspapers -- an activity for which he was murdered by the Nazis. He was executed at Mont-Valerein, a 19th century fortress in Suresnes, a suburb west of Paris, where over 1,000 members of the French resistance were executed by the Wehrmacht between 1941 and 1944.
He wrote this poem while facing his death:
You shouldn't say Kaddish at my grave,
And don't light candles for my soul,
This flourishing, fruitful life
Is our purpose on the earth
===
Sources include:
o Eddy Portnoy, "Politics and Poesy" (Tablet, 18 March 2010)
o Yiddish Leksikon
o Jewish Records Indexing-Poland (source of birth date and parents' names)
o Serge Klarsfeld, Le Memorial de la Deportation des Juifs de France (source of death date and location)
o Yad Vashem's Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names (confirmation of birth place and father's name)
Shmuel "Munye" Nadler, a poet, was born to Hasidic parents Simcha Leib Nadler and Sisla Schaffer in what was then Gliniany, a small town in the Austrian province of Galicia. His birth record shows 28 November 1908 as his date of birth, but Serge Klarsfeld's memorial, listed below, says 27 October 1908.
After attending both yeshiva and public schools in Gliniany, Nadler studied at the famed Lublin Yeshiva. He went on to write poetry in Aramaic and Hebrew for numerous publications and in 1933 he published Besht-symfoniye, the Baal Shem Tov Symphony -- a tribute in prose and poetry to the founder of Hasidism. His early work, which showed some fidelity to tradition, appealed to some young religious readers, but less so to their elders.
By the end of 1933, Nadler had cut off his beard and peyes (side curls) and left the religious world. His poems were increasingly left-wing and his criticisms of the Orthodox shocked that community. He was soon to announce at a public event in Warsaw that he had become a Communist. His announcement was followed by a scream from his brother, a Hasidic rabbi, "For me you are dead!"
Immediately after the episode, Nadler left for Paris to work for Di Naye Prese, a new Communist Yiddish paper, and he eventually became its editor, using the nickname "Munye" instead of the biblical name he was given at birth.
Nadler was still in Paris when World War II broke out. After the Nazis occupied Paris, he published underground French and Yiddish newspapers -- an activity for which he was murdered by the Nazis. He was executed at Mont-Valerein, a 19th century fortress in Suresnes, a suburb west of Paris, where over 1,000 members of the French resistance were executed by the Wehrmacht between 1941 and 1944.
He wrote this poem while facing his death:
You shouldn't say Kaddish at my grave,
And don't light candles for my soul,
This flourishing, fruitful life
Is our purpose on the earth
===
Sources include:
o Eddy Portnoy, "Politics and Poesy" (Tablet, 18 March 2010)
o Yiddish Leksikon
o Jewish Records Indexing-Poland (source of birth date and parents' names)
o Serge Klarsfeld, Le Memorial de la Deportation des Juifs de France (source of death date and location)
o Yad Vashem's Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names (confirmation of birth place and father's name)
After attending both yeshiva and public schools in Gliniany, Nadler studied at the famed Lublin Yeshiva. He went on to write poetry in Aramaic and Hebrew for numerous publications and in 1933 he published Besht-symfoniye, the Baal Shem Tov Symphony -- a tribute in prose and poetry to the founder of Hasidism. His early work, which showed some fidelity to tradition, appealed to some young religious readers, but less so to their elders.
By the end of 1933, Nadler had cut off his beard and peyes (side curls) and left the religious world. His poems were increasingly left-wing and his criticisms of the Orthodox shocked that community. He was soon to announce at a public event in Warsaw that he had become a Communist. His announcement was followed by a scream from his brother, a Hasidic rabbi, "For me you are dead!"
Immediately after the episode, Nadler left for Paris to work for Di Naye Prese, a new Communist Yiddish paper, and he eventually became its editor, using the nickname "Munye" instead of the biblical name he was given at birth.
Nadler was still in Paris when World War II broke out. After the Nazis occupied Paris, he published underground French and Yiddish newspapers -- an activity for which he was murdered by the Nazis. He was executed at Mont-Valerein, a 19th century fortress in Suresnes, a suburb west of Paris, where over 1,000 members of the French resistance were executed by the Wehrmacht between 1941 and 1944.
He wrote this poem while facing his death:
You shouldn't say Kaddish at my grave,
And don't light candles for my soul,
This flourishing, fruitful life
Is our purpose on the earth
===
Sources include:
o Eddy Portnoy, "Politics and Poesy" (Tablet, 18 March 2010)
o Yiddish Leksikon
o Jewish Records Indexing-Poland (source of birth date and parents' names)
o Serge Klarsfeld, Le Memorial de la Deportation des Juifs de France (source of death date and location)
o Yad Vashem's Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names (confirmation of birth place and father's name)
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