AVROM MOSHKOVITSH

AVROM MOSHKOVITSH (December 5, 1894-March 2, 1968)

            He was born in Jassy (Iași), Romania.  His father was a low-level procurer of farm produce, and his mother was a tailor.  He attended religious elementary school and a Romanian public school.  At age twelve he went to work in a dry-goods store.  In 1911 he made his way to Argentina.  For the first few years there, he lived with an uncle in the colony of Carmel, in the province of Entre Rios, before settling in Buenos Aires where he worked in tailoring.  From 1914 he was publishing poetry in: Di idishe tsaytung (The Jewish newspaper); Di prese (The press); Di naye tsayt (The new times); Der kolonist (The colonist), edited by Z. Brokhes and appeared in print 1916-1917, initially in Dominguez, Entre Rios Province, and later in Buenos Aires; Avangard (Avant-garde); the monthly Argentine (Argentina), three issues (1921); Far groys un kleyn (For big and small), an illustrated weekly (1922-1925); the children’s magazine Blimelekh (Little trees); Zeglen (Sails), a monthly, two issues appeared (July-August 1924) and one collection (1925); and Dorem-amerike (South America), a monthly edited by H. Bloshteyn (1926-1927)—all in Buenos Aires.  He also placed work in Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter) and Kundes (Prankster) in New York, as well as elsewhere.  In book form: In argentine, lider (In Argentina, poetry) (Buenos Aires, 1925), 80 pp.; A zun mit a regn, lider un mayselekh in ferzn (Sun with rain, poems and stories in verse), with drawings by Misha Shvarts (Buenos Aires, 1938), 102 pp.  In later years he became enamored of Communism and began writing in a proletarian vein.  He died in Buenos Aires.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 2; P. Vyernik, in Morgn-zhurnal (New York) (March 28, 1926); Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO), vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1928); Y. Botoshanski, in Tsukunft (New York) (August 1931); Botoshanski, Mame yidish (Mother Yiddish) (Buenos Aires, 1949), pp. 210, 211, 212; Botoshanski, in Algemeyne entsiklopedye (General encyclopedia), “Yidn 5” (New York, 1957), pp. 378-79; Sh. Rozhanski, Dos yidishe gedrukte vort in argentina (The published Yiddish word in Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1941), pp. 211, 222, 236, 240; Volf Bresler, ed., Antologye fun der yidisher literatur in argentine (Anthology of Jewish literature in Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1944), pp. 467-74, 925-26; P. Kats, Geklibene shriftn (Selected works), vol. 7 (Buenos Aires, 1947), pp. 52-53; Sh. Slutski, Avrom reyzen biblyografye (Avrom Reyzen’s bibliography) (New York, 1956), no. 4980.

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