MOYSHE GURIN

MOYSHE GURIN (May 26, 1921-1990)

            This was the pen name of Moyshe Gurevitsh, who was born in Vilna.  He graduated from a secular Jewish school.  He was a friend in his youth of Hirsh Glik, both being members of the literary group, “Yungvald” (Young forest).  Until WWII he was living in Vilna, later he was in its ghetto, from which during the ghetto liquidation (September 1943) he was deported to a concentration camp in Riga.  He was also in other German camps.  He was liberated in May 1945 and moved to Sweden.  He spent the years 1945-1947 in Stockholm, initially working in a metal factory, later in a school for youth aliya.  From 1947 he was living in Israel, where after graduating from a teachers’ seminary he became a teacher in a public school in Akko (Acre).  He was a cofounder of the writers’ group “Yung-yisroel” (Young Israel).  His first publications were a poem and a ballad in Yungvald 1 (January 1939) in Vilna, and thereafter he published poems and articles in: Yungvald 2, 3, and 4 (1939); Via-syedya in Stockholm (1946); Tsukunft (Future) and Yidishe kultur (Jewish culture) in New York; Di goldene keyt (The golden chain), Nay-velt (New world), and Folksblat (People’s newspaper)—in Tel Aviv; Yung-yisroel 1 and 2 in Haifa; and Oyfgang (Arise) in Ḥolon.  His mostly short poems possess colorful images with a background of the scenery of the mountains and sea of Israel.  Among his books: Di grine brik (The green bridge) (Tel Aviv: Peretz Publ., 1966), 96 pp.; Mit zibn oygn, lider, 1966-1971 (With seven eyes, poetry, 1966-1971) (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1973), 94 pp.  He was last living in Akko.

Sources: N. Mayzil, introduction to Hirsh Glik’s book, Lider un poemes (Songs and poems) (New York, 1953); M. Ravitsh, in Fraye arbeter shtime (New York) (September 9, 1955); Shmerke katsherginski-ondenk-bukh (Memory volume for Shmerke Katsherginski) (Buenos Aires, 1955), p. 308; A. V. Yasni, in Letste nayes (Tel Aviv) (March 2, 1956).

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 155.]