YOYSEF
FALK (December 17, 1889-1968)
He was born in Belz, Galicia. He studied in religious elementary school and
synagogue study hall, and in his childhood years lived with his grandfather in
a village and there absorbed a love of the fields and animals. Secular subject matter he acquired on his
own. He worked as a bookkeeper for a
low-level merchant. In 1936 he made aliya
to the land of Israel. He began writing
in Hebrew and German in his youth, and in 1905 he published his first sketch in
German. From 1910 he switched to
Yiddish. He debuted in print in Yiddish with
a soft, lyrical poem in Folksfraynd
(Friend of the people) in Sonik (Sanok).
Thereafter he published poems, sketches, stories, Hassidic and folk
tales, essays on literature, and translations from Hebrew poetry (Ḥaim Naḥman Bialik and Avraham
Ben-Yitsḥak, among
others) and prose in: Folksfraynd, Togblat (Daily newspaper), Der morgen (The morning), Dos fraye vort (The free word), Tsushteyer (Contribution), Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves),
and Yidishe tribune (Jewish tribune)
in Warsaw; Nayer folksblat (New
people’s newspaper) in Lodz; Tog
(Day), Morgn-zhurnal (Morning
journal), and Tsukunft (Future) in
New York; and Di goldene keyt (The
golden chain), Nayvelt (New world), Folksblat (People’s newspaper), Davar (Word), and Aḥdut haavoda (Union of labor), among others, in
Israel. He died in Tel Aviv.
Sources:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo
(Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), see index; Shmuel Niger, in
Tog (New York) (December 28, 1931);
M. Naygreshl, in Fun noentn over (New
York) 1 (1955), p. 302; Meylekh Ravitsh, Mayn
leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 3 (Montreal, 1958), p. 331; Shimshon Meltser, in
Al naharot (Jerusalem) (1955/1956),
p. 436; Moshe Ḥalamish,
Mikan umikarov, antologya shel sipure
yidish beerets yisrael (From near and from far away, anthology of stories
in Yiddish in Israel) (Merḥavya,
1966).
Khayim Leyb Fuks
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