MEYER FONER

MEYER FONER (1854-April 2, 1936)

            He was born in Braynsk-Podolsk (Brańsk-Podolsk), Grodno district, Poland.  He studied in yeshivas.  Until 1900 he worked as a Hebrew teacher in Bialystok and Dvinsk, later (until his death) in Lodz.  He was the husband of Sheyna Feyge Foner.  He contributed poems and articles to: Hamelits (The advocate), Hatsfira (The siren), and Yidishes folksblat (Jewish people’s newspaper) in St. Petersburg; and Lodzer nakhrikhtn (Lodz notices), Lodzer tageblat (Lodz daily newspaper), and in the publications of the agroup of young Lodz poets.  He was a patron of “Yung-yidish” (Young Yiddish group) and of modern Yiddish poetry, and at the time of the attack on Markish and the futurists in Poland in 1921, he published a sharply polemical article against the attackers.  He authored the following dramatic works: Yosef dela rena (Joseph Della Renna), Bet el (House of God), Yona ben amitai (Jonah son of Amitai), Yehuda haglila (Judah the Galilean), and Yeme hurdus (The days of Herod), among others.  Throughout his life he was writing a play entitled Gehenem (Hell) which he bequeathed before his death to Yitskhok Katsenelson.  He died in Katsenelson’s home in Lodz.

Sources: Y. K. and M. B., in Nayer folksblat (Lodz) (April 3, 1936); Hadoar (New York) (April 26, 1936); Y. Y. Trunk, in Poyln (New York) 6 (1951); Khayim Leyb Fuks, in Fun noentn over (New York) 3 (1957), p. 260.

Khayim Leyb Fuks