YUDL KISHINYOVSKI (ADOLF KISHINEVSKI)

YUDL KISHINYOVSKI (ADOLF KISHINEVSKI) (March 31, 1890-February 6, 1935)

            A journalist and author of stories, he was born in Tiraspol, Kherson Province.  He wrote his first name as Adolf.  He studied in the Kishinev yeshiva.  He took up the trade of watch-making.  Over the years 1905-1908, he was active in the Bund.  In 1909 he emigrated to Argentina, and in 1918 he departed for Brazil.  For many years he worked there as a peddler.  From 1911 he was publishing stories, feature pieces, and articles in the Argentinian Der tog (The day), Di idishe tsaytung (The Jewish newspaper), the socialist monthly Avangard (Avant-garde) (1916-1917), and later the Brazilian Dos idishe vokhenblat (The Jewish weekly newspaper) which he helped to found and then soon left, Di naye velt (The new world) for which he wrote one-act plays, and Unzer lebn (Our life)—both of the latter two in 1927 and a few subsequent issues.  In book form: Naye heymen, dertseylungen, bilder un skitsn fun brazilyaner yidishn lebn (New homes, stories, images, and sketches from Brazilian Jewish life) (Rio de Janeiro, 1932), 157 pp.  He was the first Brazilian author of Yiddish stories.  Pen names: Melankholik, Ish Yehudi, and A. Kh. Halevi.  He died in Rio de Janeiro.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; A. Lipiner, in Der idisher zhurnal (Toronto) (November 7, 1956); Y. Z. Rayzman, A fertl yorhundert yidishe prese in brazil (A quarter century of the Yiddish press in Brazil) (Tsfat, 1968), pp. 64, 88ff; Rayzman, Yidishe sheferishkeyt in lender fun portugalishn loshn (Jewish creativity in lands of the Portuguese language) (Tsfat, 1975); Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York); American Jewish Yearbook (Philadelphia, 1935).

Berl Cohen