Yehoyash (Shlomo; Solomon Bloomgarden) was born in April 1871 in Wierzbolow (now Virbaln), Suwalki region, Poland. His father was a religious scholar and a maskhil (cultured person); his mother was a “barren woman”. Until age thirteen he learned Hebrew, Gemorah and in geheyt zikh opgegeben with Haskalah literature, then he took up a general education.

In 1885 his father sent him to the Volzhiner Yeshiva, but not satisfied with his studies, he soon left the yeshiva and took up the study of foreign languages and their literature. At the time, he also made his first literary attempt in Yiddish.

In 1890 he went away to America where he almost stopped writing, and he became a merchant. In 1900 he became seriously ill and traveled to Denver (Colorado), to a sanitarium for tuberculosis, where he began once again to write. Later he settled in New York and dedicated himself exclusively to Yiddish literature, in which he continued as one of the important and major representative of Yiddish poetry. Y. also translated the entire Tenach into Yiddish.

Among his writings there were published his dramatic fragment “Saul” (staged in 1918 by Wolf Mercur in Lemberg, with Israel alter as “Saul”, and on 7 March 1924 it was staged by the “Fraye yidishe folks-bine” in New York), “Hurknus”, “Di m(ts)uveys” and “Shunmit” [produced by Jacob P. Adler, music by Joseph

Rumshinsky, performed on 20 December 1917 in a “Yehoash evening” in Carnegie Hall in New York by Stella Adler, Y. Bleich et al, under the direction of Jacob Mestel), the one-acter in 1919 also was published in the English translation of Henry T. Siskind.

On 10 January 1927 Yehoyash passed away in New York. [He is buried at Montefiore Cemetery in Springfield Gardens, Queens, New York, under “Shlomo Bloomgarden.”]

Yehoyash’s published plays in Yiddish:

[1] Saul ( a dramatic fragment)
[2] Hurknus [published in “Naye shriften” by Yehoash, Vol.1, New York, 1910.] [3] Di mtsureys [published in “Naye shriften” by Yehoash, Vol. 2, New York, 1910.] [4] Shunmit (biblish bild) [published in “Zunn un gebl”, publisher “Yehoash”, New York, 1913.]

Y.’s plays published in English:

[1] The Shunamite, a one-act biblical play, by Yehoash, authorized translation from the Yiddish by Henry T. Schnittkind, in “The Stratford Yournal”, 6, 1919.
[1a] “Twenty-Five Short Plays Intern