Joseph Opatoshu

Joseph Opatoshu
Born	Yosef Meir Opatowski January 1, 1886 Mława, Congress Poland
Died	October 7, 1954 (aged 68) New York City, New York, United States
Occupation	Writer, novelist
Genre	Fiction
Children	David Opatoshu
Relatives	Danny Opatoshu (grandson)

Joseph Opatoshu (יוסף אָפּאַטאָשו in Yiddish, Polish: Józef Opatoszu), (1886–1954) was a Polish-born Yiddish novelist and short story writer.^[1][2][3][4]

Biography

Opatoshu was born in 1886 as Yosef Meir Opatowski to a Hasidic family, in Mława, Congress Poland.

His father was a Jewish Maskil, who sent Yosef to best Polish schools in the country. At the age of 19 he went to study engineering in Nancy, France. However, privation sent him to the USA in 1907, where he settled in New York City, where his name became Joseph Opatovsky, and he later took the professional name of Joseph Opatoshu.

Works

Novels

• 1914 From the New York Ghetto
• 1914 Di naye heym
• 1918 Alone: Romance of a Forest-Girl
• 1919 Hebrew
• 1921 In Polish Woods
• אין פּוילישע וועלדער, 1921; translated to English from the Yiddish by Isaac Goldberg: In Polish woods, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1938
• 1926 1863
• ראָמאַן פֿון א פֿערד־גנבֿ ,1917; Romance of a Horsethief
• The Last Revolt, the story of Rabbi Akiba; translated from the Yiddish by Moshe Spiegel, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1952
• אַ טאָג אין רעגעסבורג, Di Goldene Pave Paris 1955; translated to English from the Yiddish by Jacob Sloan: A day in Regensburg; short stories, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1968
• The Dancer
• A Day in Regensburg, a writing about Jewish German Life in the sixteenth century
• Bar-Kokhba (1953), a Hebrew novel

Film adaptation

• A film based on Romance of a Horsethief was released in 1971.^[5] His son, David Opatoshu wrote the screenplay and it was directed by Abraham Polonsky.^[6] The cast includes Yul Brynner as Captain Stoloff, Eli Wallach as Kifke, Jane Birkin as Naomi, and his son David as Schloime Kradnik.^[7]

References

1. Chadadlibrary.org
2. Chadablibrary.org
3. Steven Spielberg Digital Library
4. Shakti.trincoll.edu
5. "Romance of a Horsethief". The New York Times.
6. "Romance of a Horsethief Details". The New York Times.
7. "Romance of a Horsethief Cast". The New York Times.

External links

• Joseph Opatoshu at the Internet Movie Database
• "Workbook" on the Asch-Howe Quarrel, on the Hartford, Connecticut, Trinity College web site
• Romance of a Horsethief at the Internet Movie Database
• Joseph Opatoshu's tombstone on the University of Cape Town "Tomb Stone Exhibit" web site
• Studio portrait of (right to left) Moshe (Moses) Kulbak, Joseph Opatoshu, Maks Eryk and Zalman Reisen, board members of the Yiddish P.E.N. Club.1928 (from the Vilna page on the Eilat Gordin Levitan web site)
• Portrait by Marc Chagall on the McGill University Digital Collections Program web site