BENYOMEN TUTSHINSKI

BENYOMEN TUTSHINSKI (1898-1972)

            He was born in Kishinev, Bessarabia, to a father who was a tinsmith.  He studied in religious elementary school, and later privately Jewish and secular subjects.  He completed the course in the local high school as an external student.  When the Romanian authorities, shortly after annexing Bessarabia in 1918, authorized a network of Jewish public and middle schools, he became a teacher in Kishinev of Yiddish and Yiddish literature.  He became well known as well as a lecturer on Jewish and general literary topics.  He began writing around 1927.  He published essays and articles in: Kishinev’s Unzer tsayt (Our time) and Farn yidishn kind (For the Jewish child); Marmarosher bleter (Marmației leaves); Tshernovitser bleter (Czernowitz pages); Di feder (The pen) in New York; and in Hebrew in the collection Perudot (Seeds) in Kishinev; among others.  In book form: Der meshikhizm in der moderner idisher literatur (Messianism in modern Jewish literature) (Kishinev, 1930), 40 pp.; Unter der hak (Under the axe), about H. Leivick (Chicago: M. Tseshinski, 1935), 87 pp.; Beynashmoshesn un shturemvintn (Twilights and tempests), about D. Bergelson (Czernowitz, 1935), 81 pp.  In those years his work aroused attention outside Romania as well, and in Yiddish literary periodicals he was greeted as a promising critic.  He was evacuated during WWII, together with 30,000 Kishinev Jews, to deep inside Russia.  After the war he returned to Kishinev where he was employed as a teacher in a Russian school.  His work appeared posthumously in the anthology Aravot baruaḥ, antologya shel sofre besarabya (Willows in the wind, anthology of writers from Bessarabia) (Tel Aviv, 1981).  He died in Kishinev.

Sources: M. Toltshin, in Indritskis yontef bleter (Chicago) (December 1934); A. Tabatshnik, in Studyo (New York) 2 (1934); Y. Yakir, in Tshernovitser bleter (Czernowitz) (October 25, 1934); H. B. Kazhber, in Tshernovitser bleter (November 4, 1934); Dr. A. Mukdoni, in Morgn-zhurnal (New York) (January 9, 1935); Dr. Khasye Kuperman, in Bodn (New York) (Spring 1935); Y. Fridman, in Tshernovitser bleter (November 18, 1935); Dr. Shloyme Bikl, in Tog-morgn zhurnal (New York) (October 18, 1961).

Borekh Tshubinshi

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 278.]