PINYE SHTEYNBERG

PINYE SHTEYNBERG (1916-1942)

            He was a poet, born in the Jewish colony of Berezovke (Berezovka), Odessa region, Ukraine. He graduated from the local Jewish school and later the teachers’ institute in Odessa, and he then returned to Berezovka where he worked as a teacher, secretary of the local committee of Komyug (Young Communist League), and director of the middle school. While still a pupil, he published poems, stories, and jottings. In the literary studio run initially by the poet and playwright Ayzik Huberman and later by the critic and prose author Irme Druker, he was considered one of the more gifted. In March 1942 he left for the front in the war. He fell on the battlefield that June. His works include a poetry cycle “Ernst af di pleytses” (Seriousness on one’s shoulders), in the anthology Lire (Lyre) (Moscow: Sovetski pisatel, 1985).

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), pp. 383-84.