Itzik Manger
Israeli Yiddish poet (1901-1969)
Itzik Manger (Yiddish: איציק מאַנגער, 30 May 1901 – 21 February 1969) was a prominent Yiddish poet and playwright, a self-proclaimed folk bard, visionary, and 'master tailor' of the written word.
Early life
Manger was born to a Jewish family in Czernowitz, Austria-Hungary (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine) in 1901. Manger was fond of creating fictional biographies for himself and passing them off as truth. In his most famous fake biography, submitted to the editors of the Leksikon fun yidishn teater, he claimed that he was born in Berlin in 1900 and did not learn Yiddish until the age of fourteen. His father, Hillel Helfer-Manger, was a skilled tailor in love with literature, which he referred to as 'literatoyreh' (a portmanteau of the Yiddish words literatura and Toyreh). As a teenager, Manger attended the Kaiserlich-Königliches III. Staatsgymnasium in Czernowitz, where he studied German literature until he was expelled for pranks and bad behaviour. He exchanged this traditional education for the backstage atmosphere of the Yiddish theatre.
Young poet
Manger began publishing his early poems and ballads in 1921 in several new literary journals founded in the aftermath of World War I. Soon afterwards, he settled in Bucharest and wrote for the local Yiddish newspapers while giving occasional lectures on Spanish, Romanian, and Romani folklore.
He moved to Warsaw in 1927, the spiritual and intellectual center of Ashkenazi Jewry and "the most inspiring city in Poland." He lived in the capital of the Yiddish cultural world for the next decade, which became the most productive years of his entire career. Manger published his first book of poetry in 1929, Shtern afn dakh (Stars on the Roof), in Warsaw to critical acclaim.
“Itzik Manger” enters the record as israeli Yiddish poet (1901-1969). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Itzik, Manger and Israeli can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q113310. VIAF identifies the subject as 14773259. The Library of Congress control number is n81128452. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1901, 1969, 1900 and 1921.
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This entry incorporates text from “Itzik Manger” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.