LEYB YOFE (LEIB JAFFE)

LEYB YOFE (LEIB JAFFE) (June 5, 1876-March 11, 1948)

            He was born in Grodno, Byelorussia, a grandson of the rabbi of Ruzhany, R. Mortkhe-Gimpl Yofe.  He studied in the Volozhin Yeshiva, later turning to philosophy and literature at the Universities of Heidelberg, Leipzig, and Freiburg—in Germany.  In his youth he joined the Ḥibat-tsiyon (Love of Zion) movement.  He worked hard to disseminate the idea of Zionism among Jewish students.  He participated in the first Zionist Congress, and attended all subsequent congresses from that time forward.  In 1902 he took part in the Heidelberg Commission to work out the program for a “democratic faction” in the Zionist Party, and he was also chosen to serve as organizer of conference in Freiburg against the Uganda Plan.  In 1904 he made a trip to the land of Israel.  In 1906 at a meeting of Russian Zionists, he was elected onto the central committee of the party, settled in Vilna, and assumed an active role in the elections to the second Russian Duma.  In 1907 at the Zionist Congress in The Hague, he was selected to serve on the Zionist “action committee.”  During WWI he worked on the committee to assist those made homeless by the war, Yekopo.  In 1915 he settled in Moscow, where he was chairman of the Zionist Organization, a member of the Jewish community administration, and director of Yekopo.  After the Bolshevik uprising, he served as one of the leaders of the Zionist Organization in Petrograd.  In late 1918, he returned to Vilna.  He was chosen to serve as president of the united Zionist organization in Lithuania.  In April 1919, when the Polish army occupied Vilna, he was arrested together with A. Vayter and Shmuel Niger, with whom he was living in the same house (Vayter was shot at this time), and was taken to Lide (Lida).  He was freed from jail six days later, and several months thereafter he settled in Jerusalem where he was a member of Vaad Hatsirim (Delegates committee) and one of the chief campaigners on behalf of the Jewish National Fund, for which he traveled to South America, Poland, the Baltic states, and elsewhere.

            His literary activities began with poetry in Russian in 1892, which appeared in Voskhod (Sunrise) and other Russian Jewish periodicals—a collection of them appeared under the title Griadushcheie, stikhotvoreniia (What is to come, poems) (Grodno, 1902), 116 pp.  He also translated the Hebrew poetry of Yehuda-Leyb Gordon, Bialik, Chernikhovsky, and others into Russian.  In 1907 he published some Hebrew-language poems in Hashiloaḥ (The shiloah) in Odessa and in Hashkafa (Outlook) and Haeshkol (The cluster) in Jerusalem.  His Yiddish poetry was published in: Yud (Jew), Fraynd (Friend), and Dos yudishe folk (The Jewish people), among other serials.  Using such pen names as “L. Borisov” and “Dreamer,” he placed articles about Zionism and notices from Zionist congresses in such Russian newspapers as: Birzhevie vedomosti (Stockbroker’s gazette), Russkaia mysl׳ (Russian thought), and Novosti (News), among others.  He edited Dos yudishe folk until the end of 1908 and Haolam (The world) in Vilna for a certain period of time.  Over the years 1915-1918, he edited in Moscow the Russian Jewish weekly newspaper Evreiskaia zhizn׳ (Jewish life).  He founded the Russian Jewish publishing house of Safrut, and together with the Russian poet Vladislav Khodasevich, among others, he brought out in Russian a collection of Hebrew poetry: Evreiskai︠a︡ antologii︠a︡, sbornik molodoi evreiskoi poezii (Hebrew anthology, a collection of young Hebrew poetry) (Berlin, 1922), 205 pp., and four literary-social collections under the same name (Safrut).  He also published an assortment of collections and pamphlets on Israel and Zionism.  Under the title U re︡k Vavilonskikh (By the River Babylon), he brought out a Russian anthology of poetry concerning Jewish themes (from Byron to Bialik) (Moscow, 1917), 219 pp.  He also edited Letste nayes (Latest news) and Di idishe tsaytung (The Jewish newspaper) in Vilna (1919) and the Hebrew-language daily Haarets (The land) in Jerusalem (1919-1922).  He compiled and edited Sefer hakongres, limelot ḥamesh ṿeesrim shana lakongres hatsiyoni harishon (Congress volume, marking the twenty-fifth year since the first Zionist Congress) (Jerusalem, 1922/1923), 310 pp.  His books include: (in Yiddish) Lieder farn folk, a zamlung fun natsyonal-yidishe poezye (Poems for the people, a collection of national Jewish poetry) (Odessa, 1908), 80 pp., second and third editions (both 1909), 80 pp. and 100 pp., subsequent printing (Vilna, 1919), 111 pp.; Heymats-klangen (Sounds of the homeland) (Warsaw, 1924), 80 pp., second edition (1925); Oyfgabe un tetikeyt fun keren hayesod (The task and activity of the Jewish National Fund) (Jerusalem, 1932), 15 pp.  His frequent travels and missions on behalf of the Zionist Organization interrupted his literary work.  In one of his Hebrew poems, he complained that he remained a poet without a language, and in his poetic credo in one of his Yiddish poems, he wrote: “I have sung this song of the people, my life’s song, in foreign sounds, in a foreign language.”  In 1938 he published a volume of memoirs entitled Miyeme haaviv, pirke zikhronot (From the days of springtime, chapters of memoirs) (Jerusalem), 32 pp., and a collection of his Russian poems, Ogni na vysotakh (Lights on the heights) (Riga), 78 pp.  In English, Yofe’s poetry appeared in a translation by Silvia Satten: I Sang My Song of Zion, Poems (Tel Aviv, 1936), 43 pp.  During WWII he spent three years in New York and from there made three trips to countries in South and Central America.  After the war he returned to Jerusalem, became ill, suffered a heart attack, but would not withdraw from his work and writing.  He prepared a new edition of Sefer hakongres (which appeared in print after his death [Jerusalem, 1950, 460 pp.]) and two volumes of his own works; in 1948 his book Tekufot (Eras) (Tel Aviv), 317 pp. was published.  He also took part in the twenty-second Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, and in the sessions of the Zionist action committee.  He died in a car-bomb explosion at the building of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Y. Entin, Yidishe poetn (Jewish poets), part 1 (New York, 1927); Sh. Rozhanski, Dos yidishe gedrukte vort in argentine (The published Yiddish word in Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1941); Y. Glantz, in Der veg (Mexico City) (July 28, 1941; June 22, 1946); D. Tsharni (Daniel Charney), A yortsendlik aza, 1914-1924, memuarn (Such a decade, 1914-1924, memoirs) (New York, 1943); Charney, A litvak in poyln (A Lithuanian in Poland) (New York, 1955); Meylekh Ravitsh, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (October 9, 1945); Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 3 (Montreal, 1958); D. Tidhar, Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the founders and builders of the yishuv), vol. 1 (Tel Aviv, 1947); Sh. Gorelik, Eseyen (Essays) (Los Angeles, 1947); G. Svet, in Idisher kemfer (New York) (April 1, 1949); Sefer shimon dubnov (Shimon Dubnov volume) (London-Jerusalem, 1953/1954); Dr. A. Mukdoni, In varshe un in lodzh (In Warsaw and in Lodz) (Buenos Aires, 1955), p. 114; B. Kutsher, Geven amol varshe (As Warsaw once was) (Paris, 1955), see index; Y. Grinboym, Pene hador (Faces of the generation) (Jerusalem, 1857/1958), pp. 339-41; Grinboym, Fun mayn dor (From my generation) (Tel Aviv, 1959), pp. 410-14; A. Sh. Yuris, in Keneder odler (November 17, 1960).

Zaynvl Diamant