YANKEV DOVID KAMZON

YANKEV DOVID KAMZON (May 13, 1900-August 27, 1980)

            A Hebrew and Yiddish poet, he was born in Vorne (Varniai), Lithuania.  He attended religious elementary school and the Telts (Telz) yeshiva.  Over the years 1919-1926, he lived in Germany, and thereafter he was living in Jerusalem; from 1955 he was in Ashkelon.  He published poems in Hebrew periodicals, mostly in the land of Israel, and Yiddish poems in: Di velt (The world) in Berlin, Idishe shtime (Jewish voice), Toyern (Gates) in Kovno, and Tsukunft (Future) in New York, among others.  He wrote numerous children’s poems.  One of the principal motifs in Kamzon’s poetry was Jerusalem.  His work also appeared in Moyshe Basok’s Dos bukh fun der nay-erets-yisroeldiker poezye, antologye (Volume of poetry from the new Land of Israel, anthology) (Warsaw, 1936); Mortkhe Yofe’s Erets-yisroel in der yidisher literatur (Israel in Yiddish literature), vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1961); A. Shamri, Ṿortslen, antologye fun yidish-shafn in yisroel, poezye un proze (Roots, anthology of Yiddish writing in Israel, poetry and prose) (Tel Aviv, 1966); Shmuel Rozhanski, Yidish in lid (Yiddish in poetry) (Buenos Aires, 1967); and Yoysef Papyernikov, Yerusholaim in yidishn lid, antologye (Jerusalem in Yiddish poetry, anthology) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1973).  In book form: Fun seyfer reziel hameylekh (From the book of King Raziel), poems (Jerusalem, 1925/1926), 29 pp., with a preface by Dovid Hofshteyn; and several volumes in Hebrew.  He died in Jerusalem.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Getzel Kressel, Leksikon hasifrut haivrit (Handbook of Hebrew literature), vol. 2 (Merḥavya, 1967); D. Tsharni (Daniel Charney), in Lite (Lithuania), vol. 2 (Tel Aviv, 1965), p. 416; N. Goren, ed., Yahadut lita (Jews of Lithuania) (Tel Aviv, 1972), see index.

Ruvn Goldberg