YUDE FINKELSHTEYN (SHAHAMI)

YUDE FINKELSHTEYN (SHAHAMI) (b. October 30, 1906)

            He was born in Brisk (Brest Litovsk), Poland.  He studied in religious elementary school, with his father Rabbi Tsvi Finkelshteyn, in a Warsaw middle school, and two years at the University of London.  He made aliya to the land of Israel in 1924.  He worked in the construction of highways and other labor on Kibbutz Givat Hashlosha.  In 1931 he traveled to London to continue his studies.  There he wrote for Naye tsayt (New times).  He later returned to Israel.  In 1935 he went as an emissary of the Israeli Federation of Labor to Poland and Romania, and there he contributed to Dos vort (The word) and Frayhayt (Freedom) in Warsaw.  He returned to Israel in 1937.  He placed work as well in Hapoal hatsair (The young laborer) and published feature pieces in Hebrew and in Yiddish.

Source: D. Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the pioneers and builders of the yishuv), vol. 6 (Tel Aviv, 1955), p. 2466—under the entry “Yehuda Shahami (Finkelshteyn).”

Yankev Kahan