LEO BERNSHTEYN

LEO BERNSHTEYN (December 27, 1914-March 1983)

            He was born in Shkud (Skuodas), Lithuania.  He graduated from Vilna University with a doctoral degree in mathematics and philosophy.  He survived the Vilna ghetto and fighting the partisans.  Afterward he was in Rome, where he was a leading figure in “Merkaz irgun hapelitim” (Center of the survivors’ organization) in Italy.  From 1949 he was living in Israel.  He was a professor of mathematics in universities in Jerusalem and Chicago.  He contributed to Baderekh (On the road) which appeared thrice weekly in Yiddish, and to Hagesher (The bridge) in Tel Aviv.  He published in Tsukunft (Future) (New York) in 1947 a long poem entitled “Sonya rekhtik” (Sonya Rekhtik).  He wrote articles on mathematics in German.  In book form: Af morgn (Till tomorrow), a play about the Vilna ghetto (Rome, 1946), 66 pp.—in mimeograph; Tsuzamenarbet mitn dzhoynt (Working together with the Joint [Distribution Committee]) (Rome, 1948), 63 pp.  He translated A. Sutzkever’s poem Kol nidre into German (Basel: Jüdische Rundschau, 1956).  He died in Tel Aviv.

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), cols. 110-11.