YANKL GUTKOVITSH

YANKL GUTKOVITSH (October 20, 1909-May 7, 1982)

          He was born in Vilna.  He studied in a Talmud-Torah and graduated from the trade school “Hilf durkh arbet” (Help through labor).  He was active in the leftist movement.  During WWII he served in the Red Army.  He returned to Vilna thereafter and there he served as manager of the Jewish State Museum.  From 1959 he was in Warsaw, and in 1969 he emigrated to the United States.  He wrote about Jewish cultural issues and Yiddish writers in the Warsaw daily newspaper Folks-shtime (Voice of the people), which he co-edited, 1962-1968; and in Literarishe shriftn (Literary writings), Tsukunft (Future), Yidishe kultur (Jewish culture), and Unzer tsayt (Our time)—in New York; and Yerusholaimer almanakh (Jerusalem almanac).  In book form: Af ale teg fun a gants yor, literarish-historisher kalendar (Every day for a full year, literary historical calendar) (Warsaw: Yidish bukh, 1966), 270 pp.  He died in New York.

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 153.