JULIO (YEHUDA) MANDELKERN

JULIO (YEHUDA) MANDELKERN (b. 1905)

            He was born in Kurów, Lublin district, Poland.  In 1957 (1937?), he made his way to Havana, Cuba.  His literary activities began in the journal Oyfgang (Arise), in which he published humorous sketches and poems.  Over the course of two decades, he contributed to a series of Yiddish parodical publications in Havana.  For a time he was in charge of a column entitled “Umgetsoymte gedanken” (Unbridled ideas) in the magazine Yidish vort (Jewish word).  He graduated from the school for journalists at the University of Havana.  In 1951 he made his way to the United States and took courses in writing techniques at Columbia University in New York.  He published sketches and articles in Cuban Spanish-language periodicals and in New York’s Spanish-language daily newspaper La Prensa (The press).  He was later writing mostly in English.

Sources: Y. Reznik, in Havaner lebn, almanac (1943), pp. 304-5; B. Ts. Goldberg, in Tog (New York) (February 25, 1944); L. Ran, Hemshekh af kubaner erd (Continued on Cuban soil) (Havana, 1951), pp. 61, 63.

Leyzer Ran