MOYSHE ZIGLER (MOSHE SIEGLER)

MOYSHE ZIGLER (MOSHE SIEGLER) (April 14, 1914-mid-March 1985)

            He was born in Sasov (Sasów), eastern Galicia, the brother of Dovid Zigler.  He graduated from a commercial school and then became a bank official.  He was active in the pioneer movement.  He published his first article in Morgn (Morning) in Lemberg (1929), and from that point published (also using the name Henekhzon) articles, travel narratives, and reportage pieces in: Lemberger togblat (Lemberg daily newspaper); Unzer ekspres (Our express), Hayntige nayes (Today’s news), and Der radyo (The radio)—in Warsaw; Lodzher tageblat (Lodz daily newspaper); and Idishe bilder (Jewish images) in Riga; among other serials.  He also placed articles in the Polish Jewish Ruch spółdzielczy (Cooperative movement) in Warsaw and Nowy Dziennik (New daily) in Cracow.  In 1939 he published serially in Morgn and in Unzer ekspres chapters from a book entitled Di kayzerlekhe dinastye (The imperial dynasty).  With the outbreak of WWII, he escaped from Poland, was arrested and deported to Pechora in the distant Russian north.  After the war he was in camps for survivors in Italy and Germany.  He contributed to the survivors’ press and took an active part in Zionist organizations among the refugees.  He was the founder of Mobilization Abroad in Italy, and in 1948, together with a group of 800 members of this association, made aliya to Israel.  He participated in the war against the Arab states.  He died in Tel Aviv.  The manuscript of Di kayzerlekhe dinastye was consumed in a fire at a Warsaw publishing house in late 1939.  He lived in Jerusalem and published articles in the Yiddish-language press in Israel as well as in the Diaspora, especially in Unzer vort (Our word) in Paris and the daily newspaper Haynt (Today) in Montevideo, in which he published a series of thirty-two articles on Jerusalem, entitled “Fun dovid hameylekh biz dovid ben-guryon” (From King David to David Ben-Gurion).  He was the author of: Tife vortslen fun sasov biz yerusholaim (Deep roots from Sasov [Sasów] to Jerusalem) (Jerusalem, 1981), 439 pp.

Zaynvl Diamant

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), cols. 259-60.]