YUDE KVITNI

YUDE KVITNI

            He was a Soviet Yiddish bibliographer. He spent the period 1918-1919 at the Kiev teachers’ seminary run by the “Kultur-lige” (Culture league). In 1928 he was a research student in the philology section of the Department (later, Institute) of Jewish Culture in Kiev. Together with the director of the Institute, Yoysef Liberberg, he devoted considerable energy to collecting book treasures for the Institute’s library (and for a time he was manager of the library). After the closure of the Institute in 1938, he resided and worked in Birobidzhan, though soon returning to Kiev. He was thought to have still been living in Kiev in 1960, though further information about him remains unknown. He published lengthy bibliographical works: “Lenyane, materyaln tsu der lenin-biblyografye in yidish” (Leninade, materials for the Lenin bibliography in Yiddish), Biblyologisher zamlbukh (Bibliological collection) 1 (1930), pp. 303-48; “Di yidishe bikher-produktsye in f.s.s.r. far di yorn 1917-1921” (The production of Yiddish books in the USSR for the years 1917-1921), Biblyologisher zamlbukh 1 (1930), pp. 349-69; “Dos yidishe bukh in f.s.s.r. far di yorn 1917-1921” (The Yiddish book in the USSR for the years 1917-1921), Biblyologisher zamlbukh 1 (1930), pp. 371-486, with Z. Ratner; “Oysgabes fun institut far yidisher proletarisher kultur” (Publications of the Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture), Visnshaft un revolutsye (Scholarship and revolution), a publication of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (Kiev) 1-2 (1934), pp. 159-70; Rekomendir-tsetl fun sotsyal-ekonomisher un kinstlerisher literatur (Recommendation listing of social-economic and artistic literature) for the mass-use libraries on the seventeenth anniversary of the October Revolution (Kiev, 1934), in mimeograph form. The journal Shriftn (Writings) in Kiev published his work “Rednsartn mit hant un ire teyln” (Proverbs by hand and its parts) (1928).

Sources: Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), see index; P. Vyernik, in Morgn-zhurnal (New York) (March 8, 1931); B. Ts. Dinur, Beyame milḥama vehafekha (In the days of war and revolt) (Tel Aviv, 1960), pp. 335-36; A. Rozental, in Di goldene keyt (Tel Aviv) 69/70 (1970).

Dr. Avrom Grinboym

[Additional information from: Chaim Beider, Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc., 2011), p. 325.]