LEON
(LEYB) HALPERN (December 12, 1879-February 5, 1965)
He was born in Yevye, Vilna
district. He studied in religious
primary school, in yeshivas in Vilna and Oshmene (Oszmiana), and secular subjects with
private tutors. In 1924 he emigrated to
Montevideo, Uruguay, where he was one of the main builders of the Jewish
community and a cofounder of many Jewish cultural and community
institutions. Over the course of years,
he served as a Yiddish-Hebrew teacher and inspector for the Vaad
Haḥinukh (Board of education), as well as manager of the Yiddish-Hebrew
teachers’ seminary. He was also
president of the local union of Jewish writers and journalists. For a time he was secretary of the Ashenazi
burial society, out of which later developed the contemporary democratic Jewish
community. He was an executive member of
the Jewish community management committee and its representative to the general
central committee of Jews in Uruguay. He
contributed to Folksblat (People’s
newspaper) and Der moment (The
moment) in Montevideo. Aside from
newspaper articles, he also wrote stories, novels, essays, and memoirs which
were an important contribution to the history of Jewish life both in the old
country (including Jews from faraway Siberia) and the Jewish communities in
South America. He also placed pieces in Di prese (The press) in Buenos Aires, Der veg (The way) in Mexico City, Idisher zhurnal (Jewish journal) in Toronto,
and Der amerikaner (The American) in
New York, among others. In 1957 he
published serially in Folksblat
(Montevideo) a novel about Jewish life in Russia, entitled Mishpokhe faynberg (The family Faynberg). In book form: Gaystike shklafn, roman in dem hintergrunt fun an okorsht fargangener
epokhe (Spiritual slaves, a novel in the background of a recent passed
epoch), in two parts (initially published in Di prese), part 1 (Montevideo, 1943), 267 pp., part 2 (Montevideo,
1944), 288 pp.; Neviim-geshtaltn, dos
lebn un shafn fun unzere neviim (Figures of the prophets, the lives and
work of our prophets) (Montevideo, 1950), 326 pp. His novel Di
moderne rus (The modern Ruth) was published in installments in Der amerikaner (New York) in 1959. He was last living in Montevideo where he died.
Sources:
Y. Vaynshenker, Boyers un
mitboyers fun yidishn yishev in urugvay (Founders and builders of the
Jewish community in Uruguay) (Montevideo, 1957), pp. 78-79; Y. Zhelenets, in Dos yudishe vort (Chile) (January 30,
1959); Zhelenets, in Ilustrirte literarishe
bleter (Buenos Aires) 10-12 (1959).
Khayim Leyb Fuks
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