YISOKHER FATER

YISOKHER FATER (b. April 9, 1912)

            He was born in Drobin, Poland.  He was a music critic and an orchestra conductor.  He graduated from the state teachers’ seminary in Warsaw and studied in the conservatory in Warsaw.  Over the years 1935-1939, he worked as a teacher in a high school in Mlave (Mława), Poland.  He spent the years of WWII in the Soviet Union.  From 1946 to 1950 he lived in Warsaw, Paris, and Antwerp; in 1951 he was in Rio de Janeiro, and from 1962 he was living in Israel.  He debuted in print in 1934 in Khazonim-velt (Cantors’ world) in Warsaw.  After 1945 he published theater and music criticism, as well as political articles, in: Unzer vort (Our word) in Paris; Idishe prese (Jewish press) in Rio; Idishe tsaytung (Jewish newspaper) in Buenos Aires; Nayer moment (New moment) in São Paolo; Letste nayes (Latest news) in Tel Aviv; and elsewhere.  In book form: Gedank (Thought) (Rio de Janeiro, 1954), 26 pp.; Yidishe muzik in poyln tsvishn beyde velt-milkhomes (Jewish music in Poland between the two world wars) (Tel Aviv: Federation of Polish Jews, 1970), 426 pp. + 78 pp.; Yidishe muzik un ire problemen (Jewish music and its problems) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1984), 248 pp.

Sources: P. Gelbart, in Al hamishmar (Tel Aviv) (March 4, 1968); Z. Vasertsug, in Idishe tsaytung (Buenos Aires) (October 15, 1968); Sh. Rozhanski, in Idishe tsaytung (October 27, 1968); R. Shushni, in Yisroel shtime (Tel Aviv) (May 27, 1970); M. Tsanin, in Letste nayes (Tel Aviv) (June 5, 1970); Dov Sadan, Avne miftan, masot al sofre yidish (Milestones, essays on Yiddish writers), vol. 3 (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1971/1972), pp. 260-61.

Ruvn Goldberg

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 437.