YITSKHOK KANTER

YITSKHOK KANTER (April 18, 1908-July 28, 1990)

            He was born in Kolomaye, Galicia.  He received his doctoral degree from Prague University. In 1936 he returned to Poland and joined the Warsaw Psychological Institute.  He wrote about Jewish biopathology and criminality among Jews.  During WWII he was in Soviet Russia, later coming to Paris and in 1951 to the United States.  He debuted in print with poetry in Vortslen (Roots) in 1926.  He wrote articles on literary and psychological topics for: Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves), Foroys (Onward), Dos kind (The child), and Haynt (Today) in Warsaw; Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish writings) in Lodz and Warsaw; Davke (Necessarily) in Buenos Aires; and Kiem (Existence) and Folksgezunt (Public health) in Paris; among others.  He published a research work on psychological and constitutional types among Jews in a series of articles for Sotsyale meditsin (Social medicine) in Warsaw.  After an interruption of some twenty years, he became a writer active in America.  In book form: Dos yidishe gemit, psikhologishe eseyen (The Jewish disposition, psychological essays) (New York, 1980), 457 pp.

Sources: Kh. Liberman, in Forverts (New York) (December 6, 1948); A. A. Roback, The Story of Yiddish Literature (New York, 1940), p. 375.

Yekhezkl Lifshits