SHIMSHEN TAPUAKH

SHIMSHEN TAPUAKH (b. December 24, 1909)

            He was born in Vilna.  He studied in religious primary school, in a Jewish senior high school, and in the agronomy department of Vilna University.  His graduation thesis was [in English translation]: “A Monograph on the Polish Economy in the Vilna-Trok [Trakai] Area.”  It was published in Polish in 1934 by the Friends of Science at Vilna University.  In 1935 he was accepted into YIVO as a research student (first term), where he conducted similar research work in the Jewish village of Stoyatsishek.  One chapter of his YIVO research project—“A yidisher landvirtshaftlekher yishev in vilner gegnt” (A Jewish agricultural settlement in Vilna district)—was published as “Baym oysforshung a yidishn dorf” (Investigation of a Jewish village), in Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO) (Vilna) 10 (1936), pp. 69-76; and it was republished in A yor arbet in der aspirantur (A year’s work as a research student) (Vilna: YIVO, 1937), pp. 19-26.  The full manuscript of this research can be found at YIVO in New York.  In 1937 this research was translated into Polish: “Wieś Żydowska na Wilenszczyżnie” (A Jewish village in Vilnius [region]), published in Przegląd Sociologiczny (Overview of sociology) (Warsaw) 5 (1937), and in an offprint from the publisher “Naza Ksie̜garnia” (Warsaw, 1937), 30 pp.  In 1930 he was a teacher in a Jewish school in the Vilna region.  What happened to him later remains unknown.

Source: Y. Teper, in Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) (December 25, 1936).

Leyzen Ran