LEYVI GUTGELT

LEYVI GUTGELT (1896-1942)

            He was born in Shedlets (Siedlce), Poland, into a successful, merchant household.  He received a rigorous religious education in primary school and with private tutors.  Later he completed his education with secular subject matter.  During WWI, he joined the Zionist organization and was, until WWII, one of its representatives in Shedlets.  He was a member of the Zionist Party council in Poland and one of the “On Guard” faction.  For a time he worked as a Hebrew teacher in a high school in Shedlets, and later he ran the local Tarbut schools.  He began writing current events articles in Shedletser vokhnblat (Shedlets weekly newspaper) over the years 1922-1939, and he served as its editor from 1922 to 1927.  He used such pseudonyms as: Yunger and Gl.  He also contributed pieces to Haynt (Today) and Al-hamishmar (On guard) in Warsaw.  During the period in which the Germans occupied Shedlets, he escaped to Warsaw.  He died of hunger in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Source: Y. Kaspi, in Sefer yizkor lekehilat shedlets (Remembrance volume for the community of Shedlets) (Tel Aviv and Buenos Aires, 1956).