RUVN LIKHTSHTEYN

RUVN LIKHTSHTEYN (1905-1940)

            He was born in Malarite (Malaryta), near Brisk (Brest), now Belarus.  He initially received a traditional Jewish education, and later he studied at the Vilna Jewish seminary and worked in Vilna schools as a teacher.  He was a cofounder of the circle “Fraye shriftn” (Free writings)—followers of Y. N. Shteynberg’s periodical by this name.  He co-edited with Gershon Malakevitsh the quarterly journal of ethical socialism, Baginen (Dawn), in Vilna.  He published articles in Shteynberg’s Fraye shriftn, and he contributed as well to Vilner tog (Vilna day).  He wrote stories with ethical socialist motifs.  In 1936, together with a group of friends, he founded an agricultural collective near Vilna, where he and his wife Beyle Dodyuk-Likhtshteyn worked in their free time.  He completed his research work in 1937 for YIVO (Vilna): Sh. anski lebn un shafn (Sh. An-ski, life and work).  He and his wife translated Alfred Adler’s Der Sinn des Lebens (The meaning of life) as Der zin fun lebn (Vilna: Tomor, 1938), 238 pp.  His profound Jewish knowledge flowed together with his social psychological and pedagogical wisdom.  As a teacher, he was an example for his students.  He was murdered in the first months of the Nazi occupation at Ponar, near Vilna.  According to information from Ana Shimaite, he was seized to do forced labor and tortured to death.

Sources: Vivo-bleter (Vilna) 12 (1937), pp. 443, 453; Sh. Katsherginski, Khurbn vilne (The Holocaust in Vilna) (New York: Tsiko, 1947), p. 199; Lerer yizker-bukh (Teachers’ memorial book) (New York, 1954), pp. 219-21.

Yankev Kahan