A. L. TAF

A. L. TAF (b. 1907)

            He was born in Warsaw, Poland.  He studied in a Jewish public school, later in a high school which he did not complete due to material difficulties.  He worked as an employee in a business.  In 1927 he debuted in print in the journal Vortslen (Roots) in Warsaw, and thereafter he published in the Warsaw-based Folkstsaytung (People’s newspaper).  He subsequently joined the leftists’ writers group.  He published reviews and stories in: Literarishe tribune (Literary tribune) (Warsaw, 1932); the weekly Literatur (Literature) (Warsaw, 1935); and the journal Zibn teg (Seven days) (Vilna, 1936-1937).  His work appeared as well in Lebn un kamf, zamlbukh fun der yidisher linker literatur in poyln (Life and struggle, anthology of leftist Yiddish literature in Poland) (Minsk, 1936).  In 1939 he left Nazi-occupied Warsaw for Bialystok, but because of Party “sins” he was unable to make arrangements there.  He later wrote the local news for a Byelorussian newspaper in Baranovich.  He was murdered by the Nazis following their occupation of Soviet terrain.

Sources: M. Mirsky, in Literarishe tribune (Warsaw) 37 (1932); I. Damesek, in Lebn un kamf, zamlbukh fun der yidisher linker literatur in poyln (Minsk, 1936); Remembrance, in Yidishe shriftn, literarish zamlbukh (Yiddish writings, literary collection) (Lodz, 1946); M. Grosman, In farkisheftn land fun legendarn Dzhugashvili, mayne zibn yor lebn in ratnfarband, 1939-1946 (In the enchanted land of the legendary Dzhugashvili (Stalin)], my seven years living in the Soviet Union, 1939-1946) (Paris, 1949), pp. 52-53.

Benyomen Elis

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 277.]