MENDL KHOMETS

MENDL KHOMETS (1892-1965)

            He was born in Brest (Brisk), Lithuania.  At age five he moved with his parents to Lodz.  He studied in religious primary school and in the synagogue study hall.  From age sixteen he was an active Labor Zionist.  In 1910 he moved to Vienna and from there wrote correspondence pieces for Lodzer tageblat (Lodz daily newspaper).  In 1913 he made his way to the United States, where he worked as a traveling agent for Yiddish-language books, representing Dr. K. Fornberg’s “Literarishe ferlag” (Literary publishers) and the journal Literatur un lebn (Literature and life).  He published in Tog (Day) in New York descriptions of Jewish life in the American hinterland.  From 1935 he was publishing similar depictions—under the title “Notitsn fun a rayzender” (Reports of a traveler)—in Di idishe velt (The Jewish world) in Philadelphia.  Among his pen names: Kh. Mendel, M. Tsemekh, M. Ben-Avrom, and Menakhem-Mendl.  In more recent years he was a traveling agent for “Idisher natsyonaler arbeter farband” (Jewish National Labor Union).  He died in New York.