BROKHE KOPSHTEYN (BRACHA KOPSTEIN)

BROKHE KOPSHTEYN (BRACHA KOPSTEIN) (April 15, 1909-September 14, 2012)

            She was a poet, born in Priluki (Pryluky), Ukraine.  She studied with the boys in religious elementary school, later in a Yiddish-Hebrew school.  At age eleven she was an orphan on both sides and was living with her grandfather in Kishinev.  In 1924 she moved to Winnipeg, Canada, and in 1933 to Israel.  In both places she worked and studied in the evenings.  From 1949 she was living in Tel Aviv.  She debuted in print in 1949 with poems in Warsaw’s Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves).  She wrote poems and from time to time reportage pieces for: Tog (Day), Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter), Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor), and Kinder-tsaytung (Children’s newspaper)—in New York; Dos idishe vort (The Jewish word), Idisher zhurnal (Jewish journal), and Keneder odler (Canadian eagle)—in Canada; Unzer vort (Our word) in Paris; Dorem-afrike (South Africa) in Johannesburg; and Nayvelt (New world), Yidishe tsaytung (Jewish newspaper), Letste nayes (Latest news), and Yisroel shtime (Voice of Israel)—in Tel Aviv; among others.  Her work was included in: Moyshe Shtarkman’s Hamshekh antologye (Hamshekh anthology) (New York, 1945); Nakhmen Mayzil’s Amerike in yidishn vort (America in the Yiddish word) (New York, 1955); Shmuel Rozhanski, Di froy in der yidisher poezye (Women in Yiddish poetry) (Buenos Aires, 1966); Leon Fainberg’s Evreiskaya poeziya, antologiya (Yiddish poetry, anthology [in Russian translation]) (New York, 1947); and Shimshon Meltsar, Al naharot (By the rivers) (Jerusalem, 1955/1956).  Her own works include: Shtark bin ikh (Strong am I), poetry (New York, 1939), 32 pp.; Zing mayn harts, lider (Sing, my heart, poems) (New York, 1945), 159 pp. second edition (New York, 1946), 160 pp.; Dos folk iz do, lider (The people are here, poems) (New York, 1951), 160 pp.; Yontef un vokh in yisroel, reportazhes (Holidays and [ordinary week] days in Israel, reportage pieces) (New York, 1965), 351 pp.; Geklibene lider (Selected poems) (New York, 1968), 193 pp.  With her husband Benyomen, she edited the anthology Unter yankeles vigele (Under Yankele’s cradle) (Tel Aviv-New York: Sholem, 1976), 180 pp.  A volume of her poems translated into Hebrew appeared under the title Meshemesh el shemesh (From sun to sun) (Tel Aviv, 1959), 120 pp.

Sources: Meylekh Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 3 (Montreal, 1958); M. Kats, in Morgn frayhayt (New York) (August 6, 1939); A. Mukdoni, in Morgn-zhurnal (New York) (December 30, 1945); Yankev Glatshteyn, in Idisher kemfer (New York) (January 4, 1946); Y. Glants, in Yidishe velt (Mexico City) (June-July 1946); M. Grosman, in Unzer vort (Paris) (January 24, 1949); Y. Y. Sigal, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (January 30, 1953); Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York).

Ruvn Goldberg