R. Z. LILYEN

R. Z. LILYEN (June 4, 1900-September 1978)

            The pseudonym of Lillian Robinson-Zangwill, she was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States.  The home of her father, Bernard Robinson, was a meeting place for Jewish radicals in the city.  She had no Jewish education.  She graduated from high school and studied music.  After settling in New York, for a short time she studied at the Jewish teachers’ seminary and later in evening courses of the Jewish cultural association.  She was a cofounder and for a number of years secretary of a community cultural choir.  She composed poetry initially in English, later (in 1930) beginning to write in Yiddish.  She debuted in print in Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw in 1931.  She contributed work to: Der shpigl (The mirror) in Buenos Aires; Havaner lebn (Havana life) in Cuba; Untervegs (Pathways) and Lid (Poetry) in Los Angeles; Shikago (Chicago); Inzikh (Introspective), Proletarisher gedank (Proletarian idea), Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter), Hemshekh-antologye (Hemshekh anthology) edited by Moyshe Shtarkman, and Amerike in yidishn vort (America in the Yiddish word), anthology—in New York.

Sources: Hemshekh-antologye (New York, 1945), pp. 363-67; Amerike in yidishn vort (America in the Yiddish word), anthology (New York, 1955).

Benyomen Elis