YESHAYAHU USTRI-DAN (OYSTRIAK, AUSTRIDAN)

YESHAYAHU USTRI-DAN (OYSTRIAK, AUSTRIDAN) (December 23, 1911-1992)

Born in Ostrów, Mazowiecka (Ostrov, Mazovyetsk), Poland.  He studied in religious elementary school, secular Hebrew-language school (Tarbut), and a Hebrew high school, as well as in university in Brussels.  He received the title of doctor for his work, “The Jewish Question and Zionism.”  From his youngest years, he was a member of Hashomer Hatsair.  He received his doctorate in Brussels in 1940.  During WWII (1940), he fled to Mexico where he became a Hebrew teacher, a school director, and one of the directors of the metropolitan teachers’ seminary.  He was living in Israel from 1961.  He published his first Hebrew poem in Hadoar (The mail) in 1943.  He then published a longer poem with the title “Ostrov ir moladeti” (Ostrów, city of my birth).  He published poems, songs, and essays in Bitsaron (Fortress).  He contributed earlier to Veg (Way) in Mexico and later to Shtime (Voice) in Mexico City, and in the latter he wrote a regular column.  Among his books: Bloye horizontn (Blue horizons), essays (Mexico City, 1945); La Cuestión judia y la sionismo (The Jewish question and Zionism) (Mexico City, 1947), 663 pp., winner of the Kessel Prize; Horizontn (Horizons), essays (Mexico City, 1948), 3 vols.; Nisht umzist, epopeye fun a shtendlikn untergrunt, poeme (Not futile, epics of a permanent underground, poems) (Mexico City, 1949), 587 pp.; Meksike, finf un draysik sonetn (Mexico, thirty-five sonnets) (Mexico City, 1949).  Naygang: balades, sonetn, stantsn, disharmonyes (New course: ballads, sonnets, stanzas, disharmonies) (Mexico City, 1955), 230 pp.; Di tsienistishe bavegung in meksike, geshikhte un institutsyes (The Zionist movement in Mexico, history and institutions) (Mexico City, 1957), 194 pp.; In vunderland fun mayab, legends fun farkolombyanisher meksike (In the marvelous land of Mayab, legends from pre-Columbian Mexico) (Mexico City, 1961), 299 pp., Hebrew translation (1964).  He translated into Yiddish Pablo Neruda’s Cantos a Stalingrado y España en el corazón (Songs to Stalingrad and Spain in one’s heart) as Gezangen tsu stalingrad un shpanye in hartsn (Mexico City, 1949).  He edited: yearbooks from the Mexican Jewish community; Dos yor (The year), organ of the League for Workers in Palestine; Undzer tribune (Our tribune), a biweekly from the Zionist Organization of Mexico; Avangard (Avant-garde), monthly publication of Mapam (United Workers Party) in Mexico.  In Yidishe tsaytung (Yiddish newspaper) (Tel Aviv, 1985), he published Der revolt, roman fun an untergrunt in tsayt fun hitler-khurbn (The revolt, a novel of an underground in the time of Hitler’s Holocaust).  He produced over thirty volumes in Hebrew, original or translated from Spanish.  He edited Sefer yizkor lehantsaḥat kedoshe kehilat chortkov (Remembrance book to commemorate the martyrs of the community of Chortkiv) (Haifa-Tel Aviv, 1967), 435, 36 pp. in Hebrew, Yiddish, and English.  He also contributed pieces to Al hamishmar (On guard), Davar (Word), Maariv (West), and Moznaim (Scales)—all in Tel Aviv.  Pseudonym: Y. Alili.