ARN (AARON) GUTMAN

ARN (AARON) GUTMAN (b. December 3, 1903)

            He was born in Bialystok, Poland, into a family of scholars, merchants, and followers of the Jewish Enlightenment.  He received a Jewish education and studied secular subject matter on his own.  At age fourteen he became an assistant teacher in a “cheder metukan” (improved religious elementary school).  In 1923 he emigrated to Argentina.  He was until 1926 employed as a teacher and simultaneously was active in the Zionist movement in Córdoba.  He published poems and articles initially in Spanish in the local Horizontes (Horizons).  In 1942, under the influence of the Jewish Holocaust in Poland, he began writing poetry in Yiddish.  Among his books: Tsu dir mensh, lider (To you, man, poetry) (Buenos Aires, 1943), 44 pp.; Yisroel-gezangen, lider (Songs of Israel, poetry) (Buenos Aires, 1944), 54 pp.; Mayn payn, lider (My affliction, poems) (Buenos Aires, 1945), 88 pp.; Mayne gezangen, lider (My songs, poetry) (Buenos Aires, 1946), 80 pp.; Ikh zing tsu dayn hant, lider (I sing to your hand, poetry) (Buenos Aires, 1951), 54 pp.

Sources: Y. Botoshanski, in Di prese (Buenos Aires) (March 1, 1944); Dr. L. Zhitlitski, in Di prese (January 19, 1944); Antologye fun der yidisher literatur in argentine (Anthology of Yiddish literature in Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1944), p. 922; A. Elshin, in Ikuf (Buenos Aires) (July 1944).