MENAKHEM-MENDL HURVITS

MENAKHEM-MENDL HURVITS (1881-January 1943)

            He was born in Libavitsh, Mohilev district, Byelorussia.  He studied in religious elementary school and in a yeshiva.  As a young boy he became known as a child prodigy.  He was a student and later a friend of the writer Khayim-Dovid Gildenblat.  He came to St. Petersburg in 1900, and until late 1905 he worked as a proofreader for local Hebrew publications.  From 1906 until his death, he lived in Warsaw.  There he worked as a proofreader of Hebrew and Yiddish newspapers and for “Shtibl Publishing House.”  He was an extraordinary Hebrew grammarian and attained great fame in this field.  He began writing Hebrew poetry at the age of nine.  He later published Hebrew poems in: Hashiloaḥ (The shiloah), Hador (The generation), Hazman (The times), Luaḥ aḥiasef, Hatsfira (The siren), Ner hamaarvi (The Western candle), Mimizraḥ umimaariv (From the east and from the west), Haeshkol (The cluster), Hashaḥar (The dawn), Ben-shaḥar (Child of dawn), Hashavua (The week), and Baderekh (On the road); and in Yiddish in Der shtral (The ray [of light]), Der veg (The road), the anthology Hilf (Aid), Roman tsaytung (Fiction newspaper), Der yud (The Jew), Der fraynd (The friend), Der yudishe familye (The Jewish family), Haynt (Today), and Moment (Moment), among others.  Many of his poems were translated into Polish, Russian, and German, and for some of them people wrote music.  He also published epigrams, puzzles, and games for children in both languages.  He also placed a series of lyrical elegies in Ilustrirte vokh (Illustrated week) in Warsaw.  He served as editorial secretary of Hazman in St. Petersburg, Der veg in Warsaw, and Natsyonale tsaytung (National newspaper) and Idishe shtime (Jewish voice) in Riga, as well as elsewhere.  He was also one of the contributors to the first Yidishe entsiklopedye (Jewish encyclopedia) (St. Petersburg, 1904), in four volumes.  He edited the words from gimel to tsadi in Sh.-Y. Fin’s Hebrew dictionary Haotsar (The treasure).  He was co-editor of the Hebrew-language children’s journal Hashaḥar and Ben-shaḥar (Warsaw, 1911-1913).  His book Lider (Poetry) was ready for publication but was lost, and his poems remain spread through newspapers and magazines.

            His entire life, Hurvits remained a single man and was wholly devoted to writing poems and burnishing his Hebrew and Yiddish style.  He spent the final years of his life working as a proofreader for Haynt in Warsaw.  In the years of WWII, during the Nazi occupation, he was confined to the Warsaw Ghetto where he continued his literary activities.  He was killed by the Nazis during the second “deportation Aktion” from the Warsaw Ghetto.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; R. Feldshuh, Yidisher gezelshaftlekher leksikon (Jewish communal handbook), vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1939), p. 836; D. Tsharni (Charney), in Tsukunft (New York) (January 1943); M. Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 1 (Montreal, 1945), pp. 68-70; Z. Segalovitsh, Tlomatske draytsn (13 Tłomackie St.) (Buenos Aires, 1946), pp. 147-53; B. Mark, Umgekumene shrayber fun di getos un lagern (Murdered writers from the ghettos and camps) (Warsaw, 1954), p. 68; Sh. Shreberk, Zikhroynes (Memoirs) (Tel Aviv, 1955), see index; S, Hirszhorn, in Antologia Poezji Zydowskiej (Anthology of Yiddish poetry) (Warsaw, 1921).

Khayim Leyb Fuks