KHAYIM BERKOVITSH (CHAIM BERKOVICH)

KHAYIM BERKOVITSH (CHAIM BERKOVICH) (1917-1952)

He was born in Vyshneve, Polish Lithuania.  He was a student in the yeshivas of Lide (Lida), Raduń, and Mir.  He underwent a rescue when the yeshivas escaped from the Nazis.  He spent time in Russia as well as in the ghetto in Shanghai.  There he began publishing.  He came to the United States where he initially studied alone in the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary in New York and later became the headmaster there.  He published in Di yidishe shtime fun vaytn mizrekh (The Jewish voice of the Far East) in Shanghai and in Der yidisher almanakh (The Jewish almanac), a collection of religious thoughts, edited by Berish Mandlboym.  He used the pseudonyms: Dovid Yekubuts and Kh. Khanes.  In 1952, he died suddenly of a heart attack in New York.  He left behind manuscripts of Torah novellae and a variety of literary notes.

Source: Antologye fun religyeze lider un dertseylungen (Anthology of religious poems and stories), comp. Moyshe Prager (New York, 1955), pp. 584-88.