YOYNE RODINOV

YOYNE RODINOV (1911-May 8, 1970)

            He was a journalist, born in Riga where he spent almost his entire life. He published images, reportage pieces, and bibliographical information about Yiddish books in the Soviet Union, meetings with Yiddish writers and artists, and after the war—about Jewish heroes in the battles against the Nazis. He wrote primarily for the Yiddish press in Latvia and other countries. During WWII he was evacuated before returning home afterward, but there was at that point no Yiddish press in Riga. He thus went to work for the Latvian press and also published articles and reportage pieces in Eynikeyt (Unity) in Moscow. He was purged in 1949 and sent to a Soviet camp. Rehabilitated in 1956, he once again returned to Riga. In 1958 and 1961, the Warsaw newspaper Folks-shtime (People’s voice) announced that journalist Rodinov had prepared a work on the destruction of the Jewish communities in Latvia and completed a piece of research on the fighting organizations in the Riga ghetto and in the concentration camps in the Baltic republics. These works, however, were not published. He only made use of a few episodes from his journalism which were published in Yiddish newspapers in various countries. He died in Riga.

Sources: Folks-shtime (Warsaw) (December 27, 1969; June 20, 1970 [obituary]); M. Altshuler, Yahadut berit-hamoatsot baaspaklarya shel itonut yidish bepolin, bibliyografya 1945-1970 (The Jews of the Soviet Union from the perspective of the Yiddish press in Poland, bibliography) (Jerusalem, 1975), see index.

Khayim Maltinski

[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. 347.]