ARYE GRUSHKO (LEON GRUSZKO)

ARYE GRUSHKO (LEON GRUSZKO) (February 25, 1913-September  1998)

            He later was going by the name Arye Bustan.  He was born in Łapy, near Bialystok, Poland.  He studied in religious primary school, as well as in a Hebrew school.  He received a diploma from a Polish high school.  In 1932 he emigrated to Costa Rica.  He first published in the Spanish-language press with articles and poems.  Over the years 1937-1939, he edited the Spanish Jewish weekly El mundo judío (The Jewish world) in Chile.  In Yiddish he contributed to Undzer veg (Our way) in Mexico City, Tsukunft (Future) and Tog (Day) in New York, Di prese (The press) in Buenos Aires, Dos vort (The word), Di prese (The press), and Pasifik (Pacific) in Santiago de Chile, and Letste nayes (Latest news) and Goldene keyt (Golden chain) in Tel Aviv.  Among his books: Geven a hoyz in poyln, lider un poemen (There was a house in Poland, songs and poems) (Mexico, 1945), 155 pp.; Khayim vaytsman, lebn un verk (Chaim Weizmann, life and work) (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1063), 458 pp., for which he received the Kessel Prize.  And, he translated Golda Meir’s Mayn lebn (My life) (Tel Aviv: Peretz Publ., 1978), 457 pp.  He was living in Israel from 1949.  He was director of publications in the Latin American division of the Weizmann Institute in Reḥovot.  From 1968 he was the Israeli ambassador to Latin American countries, and from 1973 he served as consul-general in South Africa.

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 175.]