Morris Rosenfeld

Born in Stare Boksze in Russian Poland on December 28, 1862, Morris Rosenfeld was educated in Boksha, Suwałki, and Warsaw before working in the tailoring trade. After time in London and Amsterdam, he settled in New York in 1886, where he continued to work and became involved with Yiddish newspapers and literary life.

Rosenfeld became widely known for poems about factory labor, poverty, exile, and family life. His work spoke so directly to immigrant workers that he was later remembered as a kind of poet of the sweatshops, and poems such as Mayn yingele helped make him one of the most popular Yiddish writers of his era.

He also wrote journalism and short fiction, and his poetry reached readers beyond Yiddish through translations, including the English collection Songs from the Ghetto. Rosenfeld died in New York City on June 22, 1923, but his writing remains an important window into the inner life of Jewish immigrant workers in America.