HERTS KOVARSKI

HERTS KOVARSKI (May 7, 1869-June 25, 1941)

            A doctor and a cultural leader, he was born in Sventsyan (Svencionys), Vilna district, Lithuania.  From 1898 he was living in Vilna.  He wrote a great deal in Yiddish and Russian on children’s education and public health.  He was very active in the secular Jewish school movement.  He contributed work to: Sotsyale meditsin (Social medicine), Folksgezunt (Public health), and Vilner tog (Vilna day).  Among his more important works: “Defektive kinder” (Handicapped children), Naye shul (New school) (1920); “Nervezitet un histerye vi a pedagogisher problem” (Nervousness and hysteria as a pedagogical problem), Shriftn far psikhologye un pedagogik (Writings for psychology and pedagogy) 1 (1933); “Anskis der ‘dibek’ in balaykhtung fun der psikhologye” (An-ski’s Dibbuk in light of psychology), Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO) 4 (1932); “Fishl shneursons gang in psikhologye” (Fishl Shneurson’s path in psychology), Yivo-bleter 14 (1939).  He died in Vilna.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; E. Y. Goldshmidt, in Vilne, a zamelbukh gevidmet der shtot Vilne (Vilna, an anthology dedicated to the city of Vilna) (New York, 1935); Poylishe yidn (Yearbook) (1942); Shmerke Katsherginski, Khurbn vilne (The Holocaust in Vilna) (New York, 1947), p. 207; H. Kruk, Togbukh fun vilner geto (Diary from the Vilna ghetto) (New York: YIVO, 1961); L. Falstein, Jewish Physicians in Poland (New York, 1963), p. 393.

Yekhezkl Lifshits