FANYE (FEYGE-LEYE) GLANTS

FANYE (FEYGE-LEYE) GLANTS (February 25, 1886-May 16, 1953)

            She was the wife of Arn Glants-Leyeles (Aron Glantz-Leyeles).  She was born in Ruzhyn, Kiev region, into a prominent, well-to-do, commercial family.  She studied Yiddish, Hebrew, Tanakh, and Gemara with the Ruzhyn teacher and Enlightenment follower Zalmen-Arye—later known in Chicago as Simon Burns—and secular subject matter at the high school in Uman.  She graduated from the midwifery course of study in Kiev.  In her youth she was drawn into the revolutionary movement.  She was active among the Zionist socialists in Kiev, Odessa, Minsk, and Tshenstokhov (Częstochowa).  She was arrested in 1907 for her political activities and sent with a band of others to prison in Minsk.  In 1909 she emigrated to the United States.  She was a leader in the Jewish schools, in Yiddish Cultural Society, and chair of the women’s section of Tsiko (Tsentrale yidishe kultur-organizatsye [Central Yiddish Cultural Organization]).  She wrote stories and poems.  Using the pen name Ela Lehman, she published a story “Tsvey” (Two) in Inzikh (Instrospective) (January 1923), and she contributed to Inzikh in January 1937 with an elegy, entitled “Shive” (Seven days of mourning), on the death of her father.  In book form she published Der getrayer emes (The loyal truth), adapted from French, with illustrations by Zuni Maud (New York, 1918), 42 pp.  She died in New York.

Sources: Fanye (New York, 1954), 67 pp.; R. Levin, in Afn shvel (New York) (May-June 1953); Y. Hesheles, in Vayter (New York) (January 1955); N. B. Minkov, in Tsukunft (New York) (February 1955); Dr. Shloyme Bikl, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (March 6, 1955); Y. Botoshanski, in Di prese (Buenos Aires) (May 12, 1955); M. Ravitsh, in Di goldene keyt (Tel Aviv) 21 (1955); M. Daytsh, in Ilustrirte literarishe bleter (Buenos Aires) (March-April 1957).

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