The cover of the ‘Signal’ magazine and one page with Ihil Shraibman’s portrait and story

This is the cover page of the ‘Signal’ magazine and one page with my portrait where my story was published. The magazine was issued in New York in 1936. This was my first publication.

When my army service was over, I moved to Bucharest from Iasi. I stayed a while in a dormitory. Its director was my acquaintance from Rashkov. Then I went to work as a prompter at the Jewish theater. This was when I heard the name of Avrom Goldfaden. Avrom Goldfaden arrived in Iasi from Russia and was going to publish a magazine. He met the ‘Broder zinger’ [Brody singers’] group and created the first Jewish theater in Romania on the basis of this choir. Our theater staged Jewish plays: Sholem Aleichem’s, Mendele Moykher-Sforim’s  plays, Rappoport’s play ‘Gadibuk’ staged by Yevgeniy Vachtangov at the ‘Gabima’ Moscow Jewish theater, the play was translated by Bialik for the theater. There were also numerous rag plays in Yiddish. I wasn’t that interested in working for the theater. I started writing.

I had started writing back in Vadul-Rashkov. Itshack Perez was my idol. I showed my first works to my friends. In Bucharest I had my first publications. In 1936 I sent my first story to the ‘Signal’ magazine in America. It was published in Yiddish. The title of the story was ‘Erscht tretn’ [First steps]. I also wrote two short stories. However, I wasn’t even aware that they were short stories. I thought it was poetry. Unrhymed poems were in fashion at that time. The first miniature was entitled ’Lign schtein in dem hant fun sculptor’ [Lie stone in sculptor’s hands], and the second one was ‘Testament.’ I thought I would adopt a genre based on what they published. They published the story and miniatures and since then I’ve written stories and miniatures.