Y. KENIGSHTEYN

Y. KENIGSHTEYN (b. 1899)

            He was born in Petrikov (Pietrykaŭ), Poland [now, Belarus].  He worked as a tailor, initially in his home city and later in Warsaw.  In 1923 he moved to the United States, and there he belonged to the group “Proletpen” (Proletarian pen).  With colleagues, he brought out the poetry collection Afn veg (On the road).  He published poems in Frayhayt (Freedom) and Der funk (The spark).  His poems also appeared in: Kurland and Rokhkind, Di haynttsaytike proletarishe yidishe dikhtung in amerike (Contemporary proletarian Yiddish poetry in America) (Minsk: State Publ., 1932); and in the almanac In shotn fun tlies, almanakh fun der yidisher proletarisher literatur in di kapitalistishe lender (In the shadow of the gallows, an almanac of Yiddish proletarian literature in the capitalist countries) (Kharkov-Kiev, 1932).

Sources: Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1962), see index; Aleksander Pomerants, Proletpen (Proletarian pen) (Kiev, 1935), p. 238; Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York).

Berl Cohen