MOYSHE KHAYIMSKI

MOYSHE KHAYIMSKI (b. October 1, 1892)

            He was born in Kishinev, Bessarabia.  He studied in religious primary school and public school, and he later went to work in a print shop.  Between the two world wars, he worked in Kishinev as a typesetter in a publishing house of Yiddish literary works.  He himself wrote poetry and stories which he published in the Yiddish press in Romania.  In book form he published: Ershte vundn dertseylung (First wounds, a story) (Kishinev, 1921), 30 pp.; A knip in bak (A pinch on the cheek), humorous poetry and sketches which were performed in Yiddish theatrical revues (Bucharest, 1934), 54 pp.; Finstere vinklen (Dark corners), stories from Jewish working life in Bessarabia and Romania (Bucharest, 1935), 64 pp.  “He would stand all day long over the box of type,” wrote Shloyme Bikl, “and put the letters in order, but every free hour that he had he would turn his attention to write his innovative poetry and stories—on the one hand, they [the poems] were full of humor and satire, while on the other the stories on the whole looked at dark side of life under the Romanian authorities.”  He also translated from Russian Nikolai Anov’s Dnyeperboy (Dnieper boy) (Moscow, 1933), 55 pp.  During the years of the Nazi occupation in Romania, he was active in the underground anti-Nazi movement.  In 1976 he moved to Israel.  From time to time he published articles and satires in: Unzer tsayt (Our time) in Kishinev; Di vokh (The week) and Inzl (Island) in Bucharest; Oyfgang (Arise) in Sighet-Marmației; and Letste nayes (Latest news) in Tel Aviv.  Later work includes: Fun dor tsu dor, nokhmilkhome-roman un dos bilbl af yidishe doktoyrim (From generation to generation, a postwar novel and the false accusations against the Jewish doctors) (Kiryat Ata, 1978), 228 pp., Hebrew translation (1981); Satirishe lider (Satirical poems) (Kiryat Ata, 1978), 28 pp.  The last two of these he wrote under the pen name: Moyshe Ben Aba-Zis.

Source: Dr. Shloyme Bikl, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (June 14, 1958).

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 313.]