YANKL AS

YANKL AS

Born in Vilna.  His father was a poor shopkeeper.  He studied in religious elementary school and in a Hebrew and Yiddish public school, later in the Jewish Teachers Seminary in Vilna.  He would subsequently become a teacher in the D. Kupershteyn Jewish school for girls and the public school connected with the Sofia Gurevitsh High School in Vilna.  After his time at the Seminary, he was one of the most capable leaders of the Jewish scouts organization, Bin (Bee), later the compiler of scouts’ instructions, as well as a member of the editorial board of the organ, Bin-bletlekh (Pages from Bin), for the 1928-1933 period.  He was the author of a score of scouting songs, plays, and sketches taken from scouting life, among them the operettas: “Bazukh bay di eltern” (A trip with parents) and “Shmates” (Rags).  Together with Bin leaders, M. Gilinski and L. Ran, he wrote the camp plays “Baynakht afn vinter lager” (Night in winter camp) and “Oyfshtand in lager” (Uprising in camp), among others.  He wrote about matters of concern to Bin in Vilner tog (Vilna day) and Grininke beymelekh (Little green trees), and under the editorship of Dr. Max Weinreich, he compiled the collection, Binishe lider (Bin songs) (Vilna, 1932), 62 pp.  Following the delegalization of Bin, he served as leader of the children’s auditorium of the Vilna Education Society (Vilbig), 1936-1939, and was a member of the Vilna children’s theater, as well as the circle Davke for whom he wrote dramatizations.  When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, he was mobilized into the army and sent to the front from which he never returned.  His wife Sore (Sarah) and parents all died in the Vilna ghetto.

Source: M. Weinreich, in Lerer yisker-bukh (Remembrance volume for teachers) (New York, 1954), pp. 19-20.