RUVN GOLDBERG

RUVN GOLDBERG (June 6, 1913-October 11, 1983)

            He was born in the village of Ulas, Byelorussia.  He studied in religious elementary school, graduated from a Polish high school in Baranovich, and in 1934 made aliya to Israel.  Over the years 1937-1941, he studied history and Hebrew literature in university in Jerusalem.  Later he was for many years a teacher in the municipal middle school in Tel Aviv.  In the main he was a Hebrew writer and researcher.  All of his books were in Hebrew, and he published his literary articles and works practically entirely in Hebrew publications, such as: Orlogin (Clock), Atidot (Futures), Tarbets (Garden), Meunim (Refusals), Al hamishmar (On guard), Davar (Word), Haḥinukh (Education), and others.  However, his most important research was tied to Yiddish.  He was extremely interested in the history of Yiddish theater generally and in A. Goldfaden in particular.  (He published a book, Shirim umaḥazot [Poems and dramas] [Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1970] by Goldfaden.)  In Bama (Stage) 57-58 (Tel Aviv), he wrote: “Letoledot hateatron hayidi beeropa” (On the history of the Yiddish theater in Europe), and in Bama 66 he wrote a piece about Ida Kaminska.  Goldberg’s major service for Yiddish and in Yiddish was his contribution to the eighth volume of Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur (Biographical dictionary of modern Yiddish literature) (New York, 1981) and to the present volume.  He wrote several hundred biographies for both, principally on the community of Yiddish writers in Israel and thereby greatly enhanced the state of lexicography on Yiddish literature.  He died in Tel Aviv.

Source: Getzel Kressel, in Yediot aḥaranot (Tel Aviv) (November 18. 1983).

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), cols. 135-36.