AVROM-DOV VERBNER

AVROM-DOV VERBNER (b. July 3, 1910)

            He was born in Stanislav (Stanislavov), eastern Galicia.  He studied in religious primary school and synagogue study hall.  He later graduated from the state teachers’ seminary in Lemberg.  He was active in the Hitaḥdut (Unity) Labor Zionists in eastern Galicia.  He began writing poetry in Hebrew in his student years, later also writing in Yiddish.  He debuted in print was a poem in Hasolel (The paver) in Lemberg (1933), and thereafter he published poetry, stories, and feature pieces in: Dos fraye vort (The free word) and Der morgn (The morning) in Lemberg—in the latter he published serially, 1936-1937, a novel about Jewish life in Galicia, entitled Yortsayt (Death anniversary); and Oyfgang (Arise) in Sighet-Marmației.  He also contributed to Gazit (Hewn stone) in Tel Aviv and to the Polish Jewish publications, Jutrzenka (Dawn) and Chwila (Moment), both in Lemberg.  His books include: Zevaot (Horrors), poetry (Lemberg, 1935), 96 pp.; Ven zingt a kholets (When a pioneer sings), poems on national and Israeli motifs (Lemberg, 1939), 64 pp.  Until WWII he was a teacher in a state school for Jewish children in Lemberg, later living for a time under the Bolsheviks.  There has been no information about him since 1941.

Sources: Gershom Bader arkhiv (YIVO: New York); Zalmen Reyzen, in Keneder odler yoyvl-bukh (Kender odler jubilee volume) (Montreal, 1938); Dov Sadan, preface to the Hebrew translation of Berish Vaynshteyn’s Reyshe (Rzeszów) (Tel Aviv, 1957), p. 9.