Entin, Joel

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ENTIN, JOEL

ENTIN, JOEL (1875–1959), Yiddish editor, educator, and translator. Entin was born in Pohost, Russia, where he received a traditional religious and secular education. He became active in Ḥibbat Zion and in 1890 moved to Moscow to work for Bnei Zion. He arrived in New York in 1891 where he audited classes at Columbia University. Although he wrote chiefly in Yiddish, his first publication was an English poem. With Jacob *Gordin he organized in 1896 the Fraye Yidishe Folksbine. Entin was a journalist and commentator on current events and literature for the Yiddish daily Varhayt (1905–15). He co-edited the second volume of the literary almanac Yugend (1908) and Der Yidisher Kemfer, the Labor Zionist weekly (1916–20). He translated novels, plays, and stories into Yiddish and was a founder of Yiddish secular schools, the Jewish Teachers' Seminary (1919), and the People's Relief Committee during World War i. He was active in the American Jewish Congress and the Farband Labor Zionist Order. His Gezamlte Shriftn ("Collected Works"), edited by S. Shapiro, appeared posthumously in New York in 1960.

bibliography:

Rejzen, Leksikon, 2 (1927), 780–7; Z. Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun Yidishn Teater (1934), 1577–79; E. Shulman, Geshikhte fun der Yidisher Literatur in Amerike (1943), 136f.; lnyl, 7 (1968), 3–8. add. bibliography: R.R. Wisse, A Little Love in Big Manhattan (1988).

[Elias Schulman /

Marc Miller (2nd ed.)]