YOYSEF RABINOVITSH (JOSÉ RABINOVICH)

YOYSEF RABINOVITSH (JOSÉ RABINOVICH) (1903-March 1977)

            He was a Yiddish and Spanish writer, born in Bialystok.  He studied in religious elementary school and yeshiva, later mastering the work of a printer’s shop.  In 1924 he arrived in Argentina.  He began publishing stories and poetry in 1925 in Di prese (The press).  He contributed to the Marxist monthly Nayvelt (New world) in Buenos Aires (founded 1927, later published under the title In gang [In progress] until 1937).  He initially wrote on lyrical motifs, later switching to sing of Argentinian poverty.  His first book in Yiddish—Konventizhes (Conventillos) (Buenos Aires: Nayvelt, 1928), 48 pp.—was “bits of life cut out from naked reality,” according to Gershon Sapozhnikov, “a sort of poetic chronicle in the style of harsh realism.”  His second book was: Durkh fayer un vaser, roman (Through fire and water, a novel) (Buenos Aires: Sh. Sigal, 1931), 195 pp.  He ceased writing in Yiddish in 1937.  He went on to write numerous works in Spanish, many of them on Jewish themes, which were praised by the Spanish literary critics.  He died in Buenos Aires.

Sources: Sh. Rozhanski, Dos yidishe gedrukte vort in argentina (The published Yiddish word in Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1944); P. Kats, Geklibene shriftn (Selected writings), vol. 7 (Buenos Aires, 1947), pp. 95-101; Y. Botoshanski, Mame yidish (Mother Yiddish) (Buenos Aires, 1949), p. 248; L. Zhitnitski, A halber yorhundert idishe literatur, makhshoves un eseyistik (A half-century of Yiddish literature, thoughts and essays) (Buenos Aires: Eygns, 1952); Gershon Sapozhnikov, in Unzer vort (Buenos Aires) (July 20, 1964).

Yoysef Horn