GLANTZ, JACOBO

GLANTZ, JACOBO (Yaakov Glanz; 1902–1982), Yiddish Mexican poet. He was born in Novovitebsk, Ukraine, into a family of religious farmers. He studied both in a traditional Jewish school and in Russian secular schools, and taught Yiddish language and literature at ORT schools in Odessa. Glantz wrote poetry in Russian and was part of literary bohemian groups of the Russian Revolution. In 1925 he immigrated to Mexico, where he worked in many occupations. In 1927 he started to publish in the first Yiddish newspaper in Mexico, Meksikaner Yiddish Lebn, and in 1927 he authored with Itzhak Berliner and Moshe Glikovsky the first book of poems in Yiddish to appear in Mexico: Dray Vegn. In 1936–46 Glantz was the literary editor of the newspaper Der Veg. In 1939 he suffered a lynch attempt by a fascist local group. Most of his poetry was in Yiddish, but he also wrote in Spanish and on Latin American subjects (such as his long poem Cristóbal Colón). He published essays on the Yiddish poet H. Leivick and on Novo-Vitebsk (1950). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: I. Berliner, J. Glantz and M. Glikovsky, Dray Vegn. Lider un poemes (1927); J. Glantz, Vaticinios (1963); Voz sin pasaporte: Voice without Passport (bilingual edition, 1965); Balade fun Mein Ersten Cholem / Balada de mi primer sueño (bilingual edition, 1979); M. Glantz, Las genealogías (1981; The Family Tree, 1991). (Florinda F. Goldberg (2nd ed.)