MIKHL RAYAK

MIKHL RAYAK (b. September 10, 1903)

            He was born in Ushats (Ushachy), Vitebsk district.  He studied in religious elementary school and yeshiva.  He graduated from the law faculty in Tartu (Dorpat), Estonia.  He was a Hebrew teacher and headmaster in Glubok (Hlybokaye).  He fought with the partisans.  From 1945 he lived in Vilna, Lodz, and from 1949 in Paris.  He served as co-editor of Gluboker lebn (Hlybokaye life) in the 1930s.  He wrote in Paris for Unzer vort (Our word), Unzer veg (Our way), Kiem (Existence), and Almanakh (Almanac) in 1972, among other serials.  In book form, he wrote with his brother Tsvi Rayak: Khurbn glubok, sharkoystsene, dunilovitsh, postav, druye, kazan, dos lebn un umkum fun yidishn shtetlekh in vaysrusland-lite (vilne gegnt) (The destruction of Hlybokaye, Sharkawshchyna, Dunilavičy, Pastavy, Druya, Kazan, the life and death of Jewish towns in Byelorussia and Lithuania [Vilna region]) (Buenos Aires, 1956), 430 pp.

Sources: Mark Dvorzhetski, in Unzer vort (Paris) (October 17,1947); Sh. Vaytser, in Arbeter vort (Paris) (March 1958).

Dr. Noyekh Gris