NOKHUM KHINITSH (NAḤUM ḤINITS)

NOKHUM KHINITSH (NAḤUM ḤINITS) (January 21, 1895-January 15, 1984)

            He was born in the village of Rizhitse, near Slutsk, Byelorussia.  He studied in the yeshivas of Slutsk (Sluck) and Lide (Lida), later completing the pedagogical course of study in Grodno.  For a time he worked as a Hebrew teacher in Tarbut schools in Russia.  He later settled in Brest (Brisk), Lithuania, where he was a teacher in the Hebrew school “Hateḥiya” (Revival) and was active in the Zionist youth movement.  In 1922 he moved to the United States.  He worked as a teacher in New York and Los Angeles.  In that same year, he began publishing correspondence pieces in Der emigrant (The emigrant) in Warsaw and in the Warsaw Hebrew-language newspapers Hayom (Today) and Hatsfira (The siren).  From 1925 he was writing (also under the pen name Nokhum Ish Gamzu) stories, articles on issues of emigration and education, feature pieces, and memoirs in: Kalifornyer idishe shtime (Jewish voice of California) in Los Angeles, for which he edited the supplement Kinder-velt (Children’s world); Di prese (The press) in San Francisco; the monthly Shikago (Chicago); Dos vort (The word) in Winnipeg; Der idisher zhurnal (The Jewish journal) in Toronto; Keneder odler (Canadian Eagle) in Montreal; Yidishe tageblat (Jewish daily newspaper), Der amerikaner (The American), Dos idishe likht (The Jewish light), and Farn folk (For the people) in New York; and Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw; among others.  In 1937 he made aliya to Israel.  Taught at a Tel Aviv trade school named for Max Pine and in an evening course for adults.  He published literary works in the Hebrew press as well: Hadoar (The mail) in New York; Baderekh haolam (On the path of the world), Davar (Word), Haarets (The land), Davar hashavua (Word of the week), Hatsofe (The spectator), and other serials in the state of Israel.  He was the compiler of a Hebrew anthology Ḥaye haavoda (Working life).  He edited the memory volume for Luninets-Kazhan-Horodok and compiled the materials for the books for Kobrin and Brisk.  He was last living in Tel Aviv.

Sources: David Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of pioneers and builders of the yishuv), vol. 6 (Tel Aviv, 1955), pp. 2632-33; M. Ben-Eliezer, in Haarets (Tel Aviv) (April 2, 1943).

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