SYOME (SHMUEL) KIPNIS

SYOME (SHMUEL) KIPNIS (April 17, 1912-2000)

            He was prose author and journalist, born in the town of Myastkivke (Horodkivka), Ukraine. He studied in religious elementary school and Jewish public school. He graduated from the Yiddish division of the Odessa Pedagogical Institute. He debuted in print in 1931 with a story in Prolit (Proletarian literature). In the late 1920s he began working for the Kharkov newspapers Zay greyt (Be ready!) and Yunge gvardye (Young guard), for which he wrote stories and sketches. He later served on the editorial board of Der shtern (The star), in which he also published stories and jottings. He also placed work in Emes (Truth), and later for Folks-shtime (Voice of the people) in Warsaw and Naye prese (New press) in Paris. His first work of prose was a children’s book: Yatn fun step (Guys from the steppe) (Kharkov-Kiev: Ukrainian State Publishers for National Minorities, 1932), 37 pp. He also wrote for children: Pashke komunist (Pashke the Communist) (Kharkov-Kiev: Ukrainian State Publishers for National Minorities, 1934), 46 pp.; A podolyer yung (A youngster from Podolia) (Kharkov-Kiev: Ukrainian State Publishers for National Minorities, 1935), 186 pp. During WWII he served in the Red Army (from June 1941). After the war he returned to Kiev and worked as a journalist for the Russian and Ukrainian press. In 1979 he emigrated to the United States and lived in Philadelphia. There, Kipnis authored the volume: Yizkor-bukh fun di ungeḳumene yidn in babi-yar (The remembrance volume for the Jews murdered at Babi Yar) (Philadelphia: Publishing House Peace, 1983), 82 pp. + 202 pp.—in Yiddish, Russian, and English. His pen name: A. Myastikivker.

Berl Cohen

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), cols. 484-85; and 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. 337.]