YEDIDYE (IEDIDIO) EFRON

YEDIDYE (IEDIDIO) EFRON (July 11, 1878-February 18, 1951)

     Born in Admur (Indura), a small town near Grodno.  He studied in the Grodno yeshiva.  He was quite proficient in secular subjects as well, and in Haskala literature.  He emigrated to Argentina in 1895.  He settled with his family on YIKO (Jewish Cultural Organization) land and worked the fields.  He later entered the Alberdi School and graduated as a teacher in 1910.  He then became an inspector for YIKO schools, one of the chief builders and leaders of the Jewish educational system in Argentina.  He published articles about the census of the Argentine Jewish community, which he conducted (under YIKO auspices), in Yidishe tsaytung (Jewish newspaper) in Buenos Aires.  In the anthologies Grodner opklangen (Grodno echoes), 1948-1951, to which he was editorial contributor, he published “Grodner groyse rabonim” (The great rabbis of Grodno) which he described as a “fragment from a larger work,” and several chapters concerning “Jews from Amdur” from a book “which will soon appear in print.”[1]  He served also as a correspondent for Yidishes tageblat (Jewish daily news) in New York.  Over the course of the years, he occupied the following leadership positions: director of central educational board and of the cultural division of YIKO—and of the Institute of Jewish Studies, president of the highest Zionist Agency, vice-president of the association of congregations, an important leader of the HIAS-YIKO Emigration Association, and a leader of the Institute of Jewish Folk Music.

Sources: Anonymous, “Yidishe yugnt in argentine vert shtark natsyonal” (Jewish youth in Argentina are become very nationalist), Morgn-zhurnal (New York) (October 5, 1932); Dr. Y. Kaplan, in Grodner opklangen 5-6 (Buenos Aires) (1951); Anonymous, “R’ yedidye efron z״l” (R. Yedidye Efron, may his memory be for a blessing), in ibid.; “Yedidye efron” (Yedidye Efron), Yidishe tsaytung (Buenos Aires) (February 20, 1951); L. Zhi., in Di prese (Buenos Aires) (February 20, 1951); Dr. L. Zhitnitski, in Di prese (Buenos Aires) (February 23, 1951).

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[1] Translator’s note.  This book—Amdur, mayn geboyrn shtetl (Amdur, my natal shtetl)—was published in Buenos Aires in 1973), 252, 33 pp.