NOTE-YERUKHEM BERLINER

NOTE-YERUKHEM BERLINER (1897-1945)

He was born in Radzymin, Poland, descended from a rabbinic family.  Early on he was orphaned and raised by his grandfather.  In 1921 he became general secretary of the Youth Agudas Yisroel.  In 1924 he founded (with Y. L. Orlean) the Orthodox publishing house of Yeshurun.  From 1932 he was director of the Beys Yankev Girls’ schools in Lodz.  During the Nazi occupation, he carried on illegal religious education.  In the summer of 1944 he was sent to Auschwitz, and from there to the Kaufering Labor Camp near Landsberg, and there several months before the camp was liberated he died of hunger.  He first published in Diglenu (Our banner), the literary journal of Youth Agudas Yisroel in Poland.  He composed the anthem of Youth Agudas Yisroel.  He edited a number of anthologies and literary publications (among them the jubilee volume for Dr. Nosn Birnboym [Nathan Birnbaum] on his sixtieth birthday).  He served on the editorial board of the school reader Yidish loshn (The Yiddish language), and he wrote stories.  He used the open name: Nosn Hasofer (Nathan the scribe).

Sources: Antologye fun religyeze lider un dertseylungen (Anthology of religious poems and stories), compiled by Moyshe Prager (New York, 1955), pp. 518-24; H. Zaydman, Notitsn fun varshever geto (Notices from the Warsaw Ghetto) (Warsaw, 1952?), p. 212; Yidishe shriftn (Lodz, 1948); Dos naye lebn 30 (Lodz, 1949).