Author’s Biography דיכטערס ביאָגראַפֿיע

Troim Katz Handler

Handler was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1927, to Yiddish short-story writer Chaske Blacher and Yiddish-English poet Menke Katz and was raised by her Lubavitch grandparents, Moyshe and Shtsheshiye Blacher in Passaic, New Jersey. Her brother is Dr. Dovid Katz, Yiddish scholar, professor, and author, who has created and served as director of various Yiddish programs in universities around the world, notably in England and Lithuania.

Handler was the recipient of the International Association of Yiddish Clubs’ highest award for “her devotion and efforts to further Yiddish culture and the Yiddish language” in 2014. She taught Yiddish conversation at Oxford University in their summer program and collaborated with Prof. Kazuo Ueda of Fukuoka University, Japan, on two books: Tri-lingual Guide to Japan – in Japanese, Yiddish, and English and Dialogues for Japanese Students of Yiddish. Throughout her lifetime, she has led many leyenkrayzn (Yiddish reading circles), been a member of the Leyenkrayz in Manhattan, and served on the Board of the International Association of Yiddish Clubs and the Board of the Yiddish Culture Group in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Handler holds two degrees (from New York University and Hofstra University) and immersed herself in Yiddish studies at Columbia, Oxford, and the YIVO. She began writing Yiddish poetry in 1991 and has been widely published in the Yiddish press. Simkhe (Celebration), her first poetry collection, was published by the International Association of Yiddish Clubs. The second collection, Simkhe (Celebration) – Volume II, continues the tradition of the first, but, in addition to featuring love-letter poems, moves into groundbreaking territory: the realm of Yiddish erotic poetry. Both books have been designed for lovers of Yiddish on all levels and are presented in the original Yiddish, transliteration, and English translation.

Troim and her husband Frank currently reside in Florida and have two daughters, Claudia and Shelley; four grandchildren, Alex, Cleo, Miles, and Lily; two sons-in-law, Sport and Brad; a granddaughter in-law, Kat; and a great-granddaughter, Hazel.