Boris Sandler

Boris Sandler was born in 1950 in Bălți

Boris Sandler was born in 1950 in Bălți, Bessarabia, now in Moldova. He grew up among Holocaust survivors and their children in a Yiddish-speaking community. From his parents and neighbors he learned the folk traditions and Yiddish dialect of Bessarabian Jews.

He studied music from early childhood and later attended a conservatory. He worked as a professional violinist for a decade, including 7 years with the Moldovan State Orchestra. He then spent 2 years studying literature at the Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow.

He published his first work in 1981 in the Yiddish journal Sovetish Heymland, and his first story collection appeared in 1986. From 1989 he hosted and produced a Yiddish television show on Moldovan television and made 2 documentaries on local Jewish life. He moved to Israel in 1992, where he wrote for the Yiddish press, ran Leivick House Publishing and published 3 books.

In 1998 he moved to New York to work at the Yiddish Forward and soon became its editor-in-chief after Mordechai Strigler died. He added new writers, trained young journalists and oversaw a weekly radio show and music recordings. He also produced 12 documentary films on Yiddish writers.

He retired from the Forward in 2016 after 18 years as editor-in-chief. He founded and edits the online publication Yidish Branzhe.