Bimko, Fishel

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BIMKO, FISHEL

BIMKO, FISHEL (1890–1965), Yiddish dramatist and novelist. Born in Kielce, Poland, Bimko's first realistic narrative, Di Aveyre ("The Transgression"), was published in 1912 and his first play, Oyfn Breg Vaysel ("On the Shores of the Vistula"), was staged in Lodz in 1914. Thereafter his plays were produced in the Yiddish theaters of Europe and America. Especially popular were Ganovim ("Thieves," 1921), a realistic play depicting the Polish-Jewish underworld, and East Side (1938), a naturalistic drama of Jewish life in New York, where Bimko settled in 1921. His selected dramas were published in seven volumes in 1936, and his selected narratives in three volumes in 1941 and 1947.

bibliography:

Rejzen, Leksikon, 1 (1926), 270–2; lnyl, 1 (1956), 293–5; A. Beckerman, F. Bimko Dramaturg un Realist (1944); B. Rivkin, Undzere Prozaiker (1951), 297–320. add. bibliography: A. Gordin, Yiddish Lebn in Amerike (1957).

[Sol Liptzin]