YASHE (YOSL) GOLDMAN

YASHE (YOSL) GOLDMAN (1904-April 26, 1929)

            He was born in a town near Warsaw.  Because of the poverty suffered by his parents, at age thirteen he was already working in a metal shop in Warsaw, later as a porter in a furniture shop, and in his youth he was attracted to the revolutionary movement.  In 1924 he stole across the Russo-Polish border, settled in Minsk, and became a laborer in a publishing house there.  He began writing and rapidly advanced to the head of the literary group “Young Laborer.”  In 1925 he began publishing poems in Oktrabr (October), Shtern (Star), Yunger arbeter (Young laborer), and Yunger pyoner (Young pioneer), among others.  In 1927 he assumed a standing place on the editorial staff of Oktyabr.  Due to an incurable disease, he shot himself in Sebastopol, Crimea, whence he had come for treatment.  His work was included in Atake (Attack) (Minsk, 1934); Komyug, literarish-kinstlerisher zamlbukh ([Jewish] Communist Youth, literary-artistic anthology) (Moscow, 1938); Kep, lider zamlung (Heads, poetry collection) (Minsk, 1926); and Deklamator fun der sovetisher yidisher literatur (Declaimer of Soviet Yiddish literature) (Moscow, 1934).  In book form: Lider (Poems), with a foreword by Kh. Dunets and a full bibliographic listing of Goldman’s published works (Minsk, 1931), 174 pp.

Sources: D. Tsharni, in Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) (June 21, 1927); Oktyabr (Minsk) (May 4, 1929); “A vort fun redaktsye” (A word from the editorial staff), Royte velt (Kharkov) (July 1929); B. Orshanski, Di yidishe literatur in vaysrusland nokh der revolutsye (Yiddish literature in Byelorussia after the revolution) (Moscow, 1931), pp. 88-91; A. Abtshuk, Etyudn un materyaln (Studies and materials) (Kharkov, 1934), pp. 255-61.

Aleksander Pomerants

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 138.]