AVROM-ZELIG KHANAKHOVITSH

AVROM-ZELIG KHANAKHOVITSH (1909-summer 1942)

            He was born in Plotsk (Płock), Poland.  He studied in religious elementary school, yeshivas, and on his own secular subjects and foreign languages.  He was active in “Haḥaluts” (Pioneer) and in “Haḥaluts hatsair” (The young pioneer).  He began writing with an nessay in Hatsfira (The siren) in Warsaw (1928).  He was a contributor and member of the editorial board (together with Dovid Gold and Sh. Grinshpan, among others) of Plotsker lebn (Plotsk life) in 1937.  He later moved to Warsaw, and in early 1938 became an internal contributor to Moment (Moment) and Radyo (Radio), in which he published (also using the pen name Z. Khavitsh), aside from theater and film reviews, also articles, reportage pieces, and translations from French, English, and Polish fiction.  In September 1939, in besieged and burning Warsaw, he was among the editorial group (with Z. Zak, B. Khilinovitsh, B. Mark, and others) that brought out the final issues of Moment.  He was the last secretary of the Jewish journalists’ union in the Warsaw Ghetto.  He died of hunger.

Sources: Dr. R. Feldshuh, Idishe gezelshaftlikher leksikon (Jewish communal handbook), vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1939), p. 807; Plotsk (Płock), anthology (Buenos Aires, 1945), p. 219; M. Mozes, in Fun noentn over (New York) 2 (1956), pp. 290-93; Sh. Grinshpan, Yidn in plotsk (Jews in Płock) (New York, 1960), pp. 200-1.

Khayim Leyb Fuks