SHMUEL VERSES

SHMUEL VERSES (b. June 1915)

            He was born in Vilna.  He studied in religious primary school, later at a Tarbut high school and over the years 1923-1932 at the Jewish senior technical school.  In 1933 he entered Vilna University, but due to financial difficulties he was forced to interrupt his studies.  He worked, 1929-1934, as a volunteer at YIVO.  He published reportage pieces in Vilner tog (Vilna day) and placed several stories in Vokhnshrift (Weekly writing) in Warsaw.  He won an award for his autobiography in a YIVO competition in 1932 (under the pen name “Shin Motls”).  In 1936 he moved to Israel and studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  He won another prize in 1938 for a work of his on Hebrew literature.  He wrote his doctorate under the supervision of Professor Sh. Asaf: “Meḥkarim basifrut hamusar shel hayehudim besefarad” (Research into the Musar literature of Sefardi Jews), from the beginning of the thirteenth century until the end of fifteenth century.  On the twentieth anniversary of Vilner tog, he published in the newspaper: “Di obheybn fun der hebreisher prese in vilne (The beginnings of the Hebrew press in Vilna).  A second work, “Yankev-shmuel bik, der blondzhendiker maskl” (Yankev-Shmuel Bik, the rambling follower of the Jewish Enlightenment), appeared in Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO) (Vilna) 13 (1938), pp. 505-36.  He served as a lecturer at the Hebrew University.  He contributed to scholarly periodicals in Israel.  He served as one of the editors of the three-volume Pinkas vilna (Records of Vilna) published in Tel Aviv.

Leyzer Ran