HIRSH ABRAMOVITSH (HIRSZ ABRAMOWICZ) (March 1 1881-January
29, 1960)
Born in Tomaszewo, Vilna district. His father was employed in agriculture. He studied Hebrew and other languages with a
tutor, later in a religious school in Vilna, and then in the Vilna Teachers’
Institute. He studied in the law faculty
at Kharkov University, and he was a teacher in religious schools. He was arrested in 1902 during a
demonstration for May Day, and in 1906 at a Bundist conference in
Katerinoslav. He was removed from his
teaching position for political reasons.
He was the director of the Jewish Professional School “Hilf durkh arbet”
(Help through work) in Vilna over a period of twenty-four years. He traveled to Canada and the United States on
a communal assignment, and there he remained with the outbreak of WWII. His wife, Anna, was killed in a Nazi gas
chamber following the liquidation of the Vilna ghetto in 1943. He began writing in Russian in 1902 (among
other magazines, he published in Voskhod [Rising]). He began publishing in Yiddish in Fraynd
(Friend) in 1904. In 1919 he began
collaborating with Vilner tog (Vilna daily), and he was a correspondent
for Yidisher tsaytung (Jewish newspaper) (Buenos Aires) and Frimorgn
(Morning) (Riga). He published articles,
reviews, and translations. He also
published in the daily press, such as Yidishe shtime (Jewish voice) (Kovno)
and Tsayt (The times) (Vilna); in such publications as Unzer gedank
(Our thoughts), Frayer gedank (Free thoughts), and Pinkes fun der
shtot vilne (Register of the city of Vilna); and the record book of Yekopo (Yevreyskiy komitet pomoshchi
zhertvam voyny—“Jewish Relief Committee for War Victims”) entitled Af di
khurves fun milkhomes un mehumes (The ruins of wars and turmoil), as well
as Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO), among others. In 1931 he published A litvishe shtetl in
lebn un tsiper (A Lithuanian shtetl in life and numbers). In the United States, he published articles
in Forverts (Forward), Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal), Der
amerikaner (The American), Fraye arbiter shtime (Free voice of
labor), and Litvisher yid (Lithuanian Jew); and in such collections as Lite
(Lithuania), Afn shvel (At the threshold), and Frayland
(Freeland). He also wrote for Lebns-fragn
(Life issues) (Tel Aviv), in which he published a work entitled 70 yor
yidishe masn-emigratsye in tsofn-amerike (Seventy years of mass emigration
to North America). In Shvilei
hachinukh (Paths of education), he published treatises on Hebrew
pedagogy. He used such pseudonyms as H.
Dinin and H. Visokodvorski, and he lived in New York until his death there.
Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1;
Nachmen Mayzel, Y. L. Perets un zayn dor shrayber (Y. L. Perets and his
generation of writers) (New York, 1954).
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