BERTSHI VITKEVITS (WITKEWITZ, BERNARD WITT)

BERTSHI VITKEVITS (WITKEWITZ, BERNARD WITT) (December 15, 1883-November 12, 1969)

            He was born in Kolno, Lomzhe district, Poland, to a father who was a carpenter.  He studied in a Talmud-Torah and in the local yeshiva.  Because of the severe ill fortunes of his family, early on he had to put aside his studies to assist his father in his work.  In 1902 he moved to the United States, settled in Cleveland, worked at first in a furniture factory and later in home building, and in the evenings he studied architecture.  He first published in 1908 in Di idishe prese (The Jewish press), a daily newspaper which had only just started publishing in Cleveland.  He wrote sketches and stories of Jewish life in his hometown.  He was one of the initiators at the founding of a Yiddish literary association in Cleveland.  A great admirer of the poet Yehoyesh (Yehoash), Vitkevits dedicated a series of articles and essays to Yehoash in Bodn (Ground), Tsukunft (Future), and Yidishe kultur (Jewish culture), among other serials in New York.  His books include: A bintl yehoyesh-briv (A batch of Yehoash letters) (New York, 1937), 22 pp.; Yehoyesh, a biblyografye fun zayne shriftn (Yehoash, a bibliography of his writings) (Cleveland, 1944), 407 pp.  In this bibliography he numbered and methodically laid out all of Yehoash’s writings in all languages, from 1891 to 1937.  He also translated (under the pen name “Bernard Vit” [Witt]) Khinezishe legende (Chinese legends) by Lafcadio Hearn (New York, 1930), 100 pp.  He died in Cleveland.

Sources: Shmuel Niger, in Tog (New York) (January 13, 1945); Dr. Y. Rifkind, in Historia Judaica (New York) (January-February 1945); Moyshe Shtarkman, in Getseln (New York) (January-February 1945); Shtarkman, in Tsukunft (Future) (February 1951); N. B. Minkov, in Kultur un dertsiung (New York) (May 1945); Dr. A. Mukdoni, in Morgn-zhurnal (New York) (August 21, 1945); Dr. H. Frank, in Fraye arbeter shtime (New York) (September 14, 1945); Dov Sadan, ed., Bamaarag, yehoash (In the web: Yehoash), trans. Shlomo Shenhod (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1957); A. A. Robak, Di imperye yidish (The imperium of Yiddish) (Mexico City, 1958).