YANKEV PALATITSKI (FALATITSKI, Y. FALA)

YANKEV PALATITSKI (FALATITSKI, J. FALA) (b. 1914)

            He was born in Lodz, Poland.  During WWI his family moved to Biała Podlaska.  He studied in a Tarbut school, graduated from a Polish school, and was a member of Hashomer-Hatsair (The young guard).  In the late 1920s he moved with his family to Argentina.  He studied in a Spanish-language school for journalists.  He founded the Zionist youth organization “Dror” (Freedom).  He began writing for Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal) and Naye tsayt (New times).  In Montevideo he was the director of the Jewish National Fund and president of the Zionist Youth Confederation, and he published the monthly Montevideer shtime (Voice of Montevideo) while writing for Folksblat (People’s newspaper) there.  He later returned to Buenos Aires and became secretary of the South American bureau of the Jewish Agency.  From 1954 he was executive secretary of the united Labor Zionists.  He was also secretary of the Argentinian division of the World Culture Congress and a productive contributor to the local YIVO.  He edited Unzer tsayt (Our times), Dos naye vort (The new word), and the Spanish edition of the Latin American department of Histadruth: Anales del Trabajo en Izrael (Annals of labor in Israel).  He also translated David Ben-Gurion’s book, Netsaḥ yisrael (The eternity of Israel), into Spanish.  He also wrote political articles and literary essays, as well as feature pieces under the title “In pintl” (On the mark) under the pen name “Pala” (or Fala).  From 1954 he was editor of Naye tsayt (New times).  Over the years 1965-1975, he wrote weekly features under the title “Fun shabes tsu shabes” (From Shabbat to Shabbat) in Di prese (The press) in Buenos Aires, “Fun vokh tsu vokh” (From week to week) for Haynt (Today) in Montevideo, and occasionally articles in: Nayer moment (New moment) in São Paolo and Yidishe tsaytung (Yiddish newspaper) in Tel Aviv.  In book form:  Vegnaltsding, felyetonen, humoreskes, satires, monologn, aktualyen un mayselekh fun moyshave un shul (On everything—features, humorous sketches, satires, monologues, timely topics, and stories from the agricultural colony and the synagogue) (Buenos Aires: Kiem, 1967), 345 pp.

Sources: Y. Glants, in Der veg (Mexico City) (June 13, 1953); Shmerke katsherginski-ondenk-bukh (Memory volume for Shmerke Katsherginski) (Buenos Aires, 1955), pp. 132-34; M. Bernshteyn, in Der veker (New York) (May 1, 1963); Gershon Sapozhnikov, in Undzer vort (Tel Aviv) (July 14, 1966).

Leyb Vaserman

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 437—under “Yankev Falatitski”.]