YANKEV (JACK) GORDON

YANKEV (JACK) GORDON

            He was born in Bialystok.  He studied in a secular high school and was active in the Pioneers.  He published his first poem in Yugnt-veker (Youth alarm) 19 (1936) in Warsaw.  He later published in Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw.  His poems—“Di brik klingt unter undzere fis” (The bridge sounds under our feet), “Tsi zaynen undz teg nokh a sakh geblibn?” (Do we still have many days remaining?), “Ven ikh zol kenen redn tsu dir” (If I should be able to speak with you), “Mir hobn baym trogn di kletser” (We’re holding up the beams), and “Er vet mikh rufn” (He calls to me)—were discovered in manuscript in the Bialystok ghetto.  He was killed as a partisan in the woods around Bialystok.  Several of his poems were published in the anthology Lider fun di getos un lagern (Poems from the ghettos and camps), edited by Sh. Katsherginski (New York, 1948), pp. 17, 18, 21, 23, 340.

Sources: Y. Rapoport, in Byalistoker shtime (New York) (May-June 1946); D. Klementinovski, in Byalistoker shtime (May-June 1946); Shmuel Niger, ed., in Kidesh hashem (Sanctification of the name) (New York, 1948); B. Mark, Der oyfshtand in byalistoker geto (The uprising in the Bialystok ghetto) (Warsaw, 1950), pp. 141-43; Mark, Umgekumene shrayber fun di getos un lagern (Murdered writers from the ghettos and camps) (Warsaw, 1954), pp. 198-200.