LEYZER OLINER

LEYZER OLINER (b. 1902)

Born in Lask (Łask), near Lodz, to observant parents.  He studied in religious schools, and he taught himself secular subject matter.  At age sixteen, he was already a businessman and supporter of his family.  In 1918, he was in Lodz, working as a stocking salesman and a furniture lacquerer, among other jobs.  For a time he was active in the leftist Jewish workers movement; later he left for a collective of Umaner Hassidim in Lublin and became observant.  From 1931 until the war (1939), he was in Warsaw, later escaping to Bialystok, and from there he was sent to Siberia.  From 1941 to 1947, he was in Central Asia where he worked in various unskilled labor trades, in a collective farm, and ultimate he became a teacher of Jewish children in Turkestan.  During the repatriation of Polish citizens, in 1947 he returned to Poland where he lived in Lodz and Nidershlezye (Niderszlezje [a Jewish settlement in Lower Silesia]).  From 1949 forward, he was living in Israel as a laborer.  He began writing stories at age sixteen under the influence of I. M. Vaysenberg (Weissenberg) who saw to it that Oliner’s first short story appeared in print in Unzer hofenung (Our hope) in Warsaw.  He later published short stories and sketches in Lodzher tageblat (Lodz daily news) and Nayer folksblat (New people’s newspaper) in Warsaw, among others.  After the war, he published in Dos naye lebn (The new life), Yidishe shrift (Yiddish writings), and Nidershlezye all in Poland; and sketches and scenes under the name Leyzer Olei in Di letste nayes (Last news) in Israel.  His writings include: Di shtub, noveln (The home, short stories) (Tel Aviv: Eygns, 1959), 187 pp.; Garber-gas, roman (Tanner street, a novel) (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1967-1970), 2 vols.; Yerushe fun doyres (Heritage of generations) (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1975-1977), 2 vols.; Af fremde erd, roman (On alien terrain, a novel) (Tel Aviv: Eygns, 1979), 1 vol.  A number of his short stories were translated into Hebrew and published by the Israel press.  He was the younger brother of the writer Mordechai Oley.