NOYEKH GORELIK

NOYEKH GORELIK (1893-1945)

            He was a poet and translator, born in Bobruisk, Byelorussia, into the family of a poor cheder teacher.  He studied in religious elementary school and with a private tutor who introduced him to Russian literature. At age twenty he left for Odessa, but soon thereafter returned home. He served in the Red Army during the civil war. He was later an active leader in the “Yevsektsye” (Jewish section) and took part in the second conference of the Jewish section in Moscow. He published his first poems in Grininke beymelekh (Little green trees) and Di vokh (The week). He later placed work in: Ruf (Call), Kunst-ring (Art ring), and Der yunger pyoner (The young pioneer).  His children’s poem “Trift a regndl” (It’s drizzling) was especially popular; its music was composed by Lifshits who was Gorelik’s fellow townsman (and the author of the melody to Morris Rozenfeld’s poem “Mayn yingele” [My little boy]). After the Revolution, he published poetry in Yiddish newspapers and journals in Byelorussia and Ukraine, among them: Far kleyne kinder (For little children) (Kiev Publishers, 1918). He died in the Minsk ghetto.

Among his books: Der soykher mitn ber (The merchants and the bear) (Kharkov: Pedagogisher farlog, 1918), 19 pp.; Kinder-lider (Children’s poem) (Minsk: Byelorussian State Publ., 1928), 48 pp.; Yugnt-lider (Youth poems) (Minsk, 1929), 46 pp.  He translated: Andrei Dmitrievich Irkutov, Der marsh af vashington (The march on Washington [original: Zakhod na vashington]) (Minsk: Byelorussian State Publ., 1928), 85 pp.  His work was also included in: Ruf, lider zamlung (Call, poetry collection) (Minsk: Byelorussian State Publ., 1935).

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Shmuel Niger, in Naye tsayt (Kiev) 148 (1918); Kh. Sh. K[azdan], in Bikher-velt 1 (Kiev) (1919); A. Abtshuk, Etyudn un materialn tsu der geshikhte fun der yidisher literatur bavegung in FSRR (Studies and material for the history of the Yiddish literature movement in the Soviet Union) (Kharkov, 1934), p. 25; A. Finkl, “Rokhl brokhes” (Rokhl Brokhes), Eynikeyt (Moscow) (July 14, 1945); P. Kats, Mayn nesie in ratn-farband (My trip to the Soviet Union) (Buenos Aires, 1946).

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 147; and Chaim Beider, Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc., 2011), p. 75.]