YOYSEF DERETSHIN

YOYSEF DERETSHIN (b. July 19, 1889)

            He was born in the village of Byelko, Volhynia district, Poland, into a family of Jewish farmers.  He received both a Jewish and a secular education.  He graduated from a Russian high school in Zhitomir.  After serving in the Russian Army, in 1913 he came to the United States and studied for a time at Columbia University in New York.  During WWI he was a soldier in the American Army.  He began publishing lyrical and ethnic nationalist poetry in Dos idishe folk (The Jewish people) in New York in 1917, and later he published stories and poems in Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter), Fray arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor), and Di naye tsayt (The new times), among others in New York.

Source: From the archives of Zalmen Reyzen at YIVO (New York).