YANKEV TENENBOYM

YANKEV TENENBOYM (1878-August 24, 1942)

            He was born in Shedlets (Siedlce), Poland.  He studied in religious elementary school, yeshivas, and with private tutors.  In 1905 he was an active leader of the Bund in Shedlets.  Later, in 1910, he worked as a barber-surgeon at a Jewish hospital.  He was the founder of Hazemir (The nightingale) in Shedlets in 1915, and he administered the dramatic section of the association.  He was one of the pioneers of the Yiddish press in Shedlets.  He contributed work to: Shedletser viderkol (Shedlets echo), Shedletser lebn (Shedlets life) in 1913, and the Yiddish periodical press in Shedlets until 1939; he published in these outlets feature pieces, stories, and articles.  In Dos yudishe folk (The Jewish people) in Warsaw (1916-1917), he published a long story entitled “Yoyel kashke” (Joel Kashke).  He also penned the one-act plays: Vest nisht geyn in “Hazmir” (You won’t go to the Nightingale), “a comedy in one act” (Warsaw, 1920), 16 pp.; S’a mensh (Such a good person), a view of the recent events in Ukraine (Shedlets: Yidishe bine, 1921), 16 pp.; Di ershte vizye (The first vision), “a gag in one act” (Shedlets: Yidishe bine, 1922). 24 pp.  Together with Y. Kh. Ayzenberg and Y. F. Grinberg, he edited the bimonthly magazine Vortslen (Roots) in Shedlets (1927).  In the Shedlets ghetto he once again worked as a barber-surgeon.  He was murdered with the doctors and relief personnel during the liquidation of the Jewish hospital in Shedlets.

Sources: A. Faynzilber, Af di khurves fun mayn heym (On the ruins of my home) (Tel Aviv, 1952), pp. 13, 76, 226; Y. Kaspi, in Yivo-bleter (New York) 36 (1952), pp. 361-62; Kaspi, in Sefer yizkor lekehilat shedlets (Memory volume for the community of Shedlets), ed. A. V. Yasni (Buenos Aires, 1956), pp. 157f.

Khayim Leyb Fuks