YEHUDE VAYNBERG

YEHUDE VAYNBERG (January 1, 1898-April 1, 1971)

            He was born in Vekshne (Viekšniai), Kovno district, Lithuania.  He studied in religious elementary school, yeshivas, as well as secular subject matter.  At the time of the Tsarist expulsion decrees against Jews during WWI, he was driven to Tavriz in the Caucasus, and there he completed high school.  He studied philosophy, 1920-1921, at Moscow University, then returned to Lithuania and from there in 1923 moved to the United States.  He graduated from Dropsie College in Philadelphia, thereafter settling in New York.  He debuted in print with a story in Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal) in New York (1929).  He later placed work in: Forverts (Forward), Tog (Day), Tsukunft (Future), Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor), Kinder-zhurnal (Children’s magazine), Kinder-velt (Children’s world), and Hadoar (The mail), among others—in New York.  In book form in Yiddish: Kinder-pyesn (Children’s plays) which included “Der vunder-mentsh” (Man of wonders), “Sdom” (Sodom), “Khoyshek mitsraim” (Darkness in Egypt), and “Der zeyde mitn eynikl” (Grandfather with grandson) (New York, 1929), 32 pp.; and in Hebrew: Ima (Mother), a one-act play for children (New York, 1930), 16 pp.  He also published under such pen names as: Y. Karmi, Y. Bergvayn, V. Berg, and A. Amiti.  He was last living in Brooklyn, where he died, working as a teacher for the Jewish National Workers’ Alliance.