BORIS HALPERN

BORIS HALPERN (March 12, 1868-1944)

            He was born in the town of Most (Masty), Grodno region, Byelorussia.  He studied in religious elementary school, later as an external student he went through the Russian middle school course of study; and then he went on to study political economy, and from 1898 he was active in the field of credit cooperatives.  He was in charge of the “first Vilna Jewish savings-and-loan for craftsmen and small merchants” (the “Jewish Bank” on Rudnicki Street).  He first wrote on cooperatives for Russian-language cooperative journals, later in Yiddish—for Vilner tog (Vilna day) and Pinkes (Records) for Vilna (edited by Zalmen Reyzen), among others.  In book form, he published: Vi azoy darf men grindn un firn a lay- un shpor-kase (How one ought found and run a savings-and-loan bank) (Vilna, 1921), 88 pp.; A hantbukh far onfirer fun a folks-bank, a lay- un shpor-kase (A handbook for managers of a people’s bank, a savings-and-loan), with N. Kovarski (Vilna, 1922), 80 pp.; two extremely popular propaganda pamphlets published by “Jewish People’s Library”—Vos mayne oygn hobn gezen, oder vi a shtetl in raykh gevorn (What my eyes saw, or how a town got rich) (Vilna, 1925), 16 pp.; and Di vegn tsu voylshtand un glik (The ways to happiness and joy) (Vilna, 1925), 20 pp.—Iza shaliman, drame in 4 aktn un 1 bild (Iza Shaliman, a play in four acts and one scene) (Vilna: B. Kletskin, 1929), 83 pp., an anti-war play; Di anarkhye nokhn kapitalizm (The anarchy after capitalism) (Warsaw, 1933?), 106 pp.; Pinkes fun yidishn bank, 1896-1936, tsum fertsik yorikn yoyvl fun der ershter vilner yidisher lay un shpor kase far hantverker un kleynhendler (Records of a Jewish bank, 1896-1936, on the fortieth anniversary of the first Vilna Jewish savings-and-loan for craftsmen and small merchants) (Vilna, 1936), New York, 1947), p. 188.  He was also active in the Jewish commercial and artisanal association and in the Jewish democratic party in Vilna.

            When the Nazis entered Vilna, he was confined to the ghetto and worked in the bank of the “Jewish Council.”  His wife, Rivke Libishki, a teacher, also continued her work until she was deported to her death in a selection.  He was sent from the Vilna ghetto to the Kiviõli Concentration Camp in Estonia where he was murdered in 1944.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1, col. 833-34; Sh. Katsherginski, Khurbn vilne (The Holocaust in Vilna) (New York, 1947), p. 188.