YITSKHOK BLUMSHTEYN (ISAAC BLUMSTEIN)

YITSKHOK BLUMSHTEYN (ISAAC BLUMSTEIN) (1897-ca. August 1963)

     He was born in Czerwin, Łomża district, Poland.  His father was a ritual slaughterer.  Until age sixteen he studied at the yeshivas in Łomża and Raduń.  He later left for Vilna where he acquired a general education and worked as a Hebrew teacher in Tarbut schools in Poland (1917).  He began writing poetry in Hebrew but soon switched to Yiddish.  In 1928 he emigrated to Argentina.  He published poems mainly in: Di idishe tsaytung (The Jewish newspaper).  In 1936 he settled in Chile.  He edited Tshilener yidisher vokhnblat (Chilean Jewish weekly news) and Dos vort (The word) which was also a weekly.  After the founding of the state of Israel, he moved there and worked for two years as a teacher.  He returned to Chile in 1954.  Among his books: Bay di andn, lider un poemen (By the Andes, songs and poems) (Mendosa [Argentina], 1935), 106 pp.  He was living in Chile, until 1954 when he moved to Israel where he was a teacher in Bnei-Brak.

Sources: Antologye fun der yidisher literatur in argentine (Anthology of Yiddish literature in Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1944), pp. 91-98; Y. Botoshanski, Mame-yidish (Mother Yiddish) (Buenos Aires, 1949), pp. 255-56; Sh. Rozhanski, Dos yidishe gedrukte vort in argentina (The published Yiddish word in Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1941), pp. 136, 156-57; Pinye Kats, Yidishe literatur in argentina (Yiddish literature in Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1947).

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 90.]