AVROM (ABRAHAM) HEFTERMAN

AVROM (ABRAHAM) HEFTERMAN (August 19, 1897-July 15, 1981)

            He was born in Nemirov, Podolia, Ukraine.  He studied in religious elementary school and in the synagogue study hall, later in the yeshiva of R. Tsirlson in Kishinev, where he received rabbinical ordination.  In 1921 he left Russia and settled in Kishinev, and until 1926 he served as the local rabbi.  From 1926 he was living in the United States, the rabbi of Manchester, New Hampshire, and a member of the organization of American rabbis.  He debuted in print with an article on Dovid Frishman in the daily newspaper Unzer tsayt (Our time) in Kishinev, and from that time on he published articles, stories, and essays also in Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal) in New York and other serials.  From 1950 he was a contributor to Forverts (Forward) in New York, in which he published a series of articles on interesting Jewish types and occurrences in the American hinterland.  He also wrote in Hebrew and in English.  He published essays and reviews in Hadoar (The mail) in New York, as well as in other Hebrew-language publications in the United States.  He was the author of Azoy lebn yidn, rabonim, rabays un stam yidn in amerikaner kasrilevke (How Jews live: Orthodox rabbis, non-Orthodox rabbis, and ordinary Jews in American Kasrilevke) (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1963), 382 pp.  He died in New Haven, Connecticut.

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 223.]