HERSH LEYB KAZHBER

HERSH LEYB KAZHBER (1906-1942)

            He was a writer of fiction, born Hersh Vaynshteyn in Kazhbe (Cajba), Bessarabia [now in Moldova].  He added the “Leyb” to his name in honor of Moyshe-Leyb Halpern.  He came from poor rural settlers.  He gave lessons and was thus able to attend the Kishinev state high school.  Due to an accident, he was lame in one foot.  He studied in poverty in Belz, Bessarabia, and from 1931 in Czernowitz.  In 1939 he became a teacher of Yiddish literature in the evening school run by “Morgnroyt” (Dawn; Aurora), after returning from a period as a research student at YIVO in Vilna.  He was a firebrand speaker.  In 1941 he made his way deep into the Soviet Union, and there he died of hunger.  He was a member of the literary group “Yung-romenye” (Young Romania).  He debuted in print with a novella in Tshenovitser bleter (Czernowitz leaves).  He wrote stories and articles for: Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) and the anthology Onzog (Message) (Kishinev) edited by H. Rivkin and Y. Yakir.  His work also appeared in Oyfshtand (Uprising) (Bucharest, 1964, 1972).  In book form: Kazyone gimnazye (Commonplace high school) (Czernowitz: Leyzer Shteynbarg, 1937), 136 pp.  Kazhber’s writing reflects his bitter fate: physical deformity and want, antagonism and hatred for the environment.  Shloyme Bikl extolled his talent for writing fiction.  He died in Samarkand, USSR.

Sources: Y. Paner, in Di goldene keyt (Tel Aviv 6 (1950); Shloyme Bikl, Rumenye (Romania) (Buenos Aires, 1961), pp. 291-94, 400; Ikuf-almanakh (New York, 1961), p. 166; Bay zikh (Tel Aviv) 4 (1974); Y. Yakir, in Dorem-afrike (Johannesburg) (March-April 1978); Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York.

Dr. Volf Gilksman