As an influential Jewish author and communal leader, Ida Maze played a crucial role in helping fellow Jewish writers flee Europe after World War II by securing Canadian entry visas for them and helping to publish their works. Maze was part of a greater population of Yiddish-language speakers and writers in Montreal who cultivated community through their shared love for Jewish culture. 

Ida Maze was born Hayeh Zukofsky on July 9, 1893, in Ugli, Belarus. In 1905, Maze, along with her family, moved to New York City, then again a year later to Montreal, Canada.

Maze began writing poetry while she was still a teenager, although her first book, A Mame, was not published until 1931. Her interest in literature was formed by listening in on her brother’s schooling, during which she also picked up Hebrew and Russian. Women at the time usually were not allowed to learn Hebrew, and Jewish women writers like Maze generally had no choice but to write in Yiddish. Maze’s writing was strongly influenced by the death of her ten-year-old son, Bernard. In fact, many of her published works, such as Lider far kinder and Vakhsn mayne kinderlech, were written for or about her three sons. 

After Maze’s death on June 13, 1962, her confidant and fellow Yiddish-language writer Moyshe-Mortkhe Shafir (M.M. Shaffir) gathered and edited her unpublished writing to create the posthumously published autobiographical Yiddish novel Dineh. The novel depicts life in a Belarussian shtetl from the perspective of Maze during her youth. In what is regarded as her most successful piece of writing, Maze’s readers are given a glimpse into the lives of Eastern European Jews through themes of community, class, and the relationships between Jews and non-Jews. The novel also provides insight into Jewish life under Tsarist rule in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

Maze’s works have been translated into Hebrew, Russian, French and English, but the original versions are testament to her impact on the Yiddish-language community and Jewish women writers. 

Sources:

“Ida Maze.” Yiddish Book Center. Accessed April 10, 2025. https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/about/white-goat-press-0/ida-maze. 

Fuerstenberg, Adam. "Ida Maze." Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women. 27 February 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on April 10, 2025) https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/maze-ida. 

“Dineh.” Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2022. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ida-maze/dineh-an-autobiographical-novel/.