DOVID ZARITSKI (DAVID ZARETSKY)

DOVID ZARITSKI (DAVID ZARETSKY) (January 28, 1914-June 27, 1978)

            He was born in Pinsk, Byelorussia.  He studied in the Karliner Talmud Torah and in a secular school, and later with the Chofets Chaim in Radin (Raduń).  With the outbreak of WWII, he escaped to Lithuania, where the Bolsheviks arrested him and exiled him to a labor camp in Siberia.  Freed in 1946, he lived for a time in Poland, then in Paris, France where he worked for Agudat Yisrael and visited North America, Argentina, and Uruguay on missions on its behalf.  From 1949 he was living in Israel where he served as director in the division of the rabbinate in the Ministry of Religion.  He began writing with articles for Dos vort (The word) in Vilna in 1930, later contributing to: Yudishes tageblat (Jewish daily newspaper) in Warsaw; Beys-yankev zhurnal (Beys Yankev journal) and Idishe arbeter-shtime (Voice of Jewish labor) in Lodz; and Forverts (Forward) in New York, from which in 1938 he received first prize for a story.  He also placed work in the Yiddish-Hebrew Bashaar (At the gate) and was literary director at Hamodia (The herald).  Over the years 1947-1949, he edited the Parisian children’s magazine Funken (Sparks).  He published stories and literary criticism in Hatsofe (The spectator), Gvilin (Scrolls), and Emunim (Faithful), among other serials, in Israel, as well as in Idishe vokh (Jewish week), Dos idishe vort (The Jewish word), and other publications of Agudat Yisrael in the Diaspora.  Among his books: Mesholim fun khofets khayim (Proverbs from the Chofets Chaim), “from his religious works and notebooks” (Kovno: Idisher lebn, 1946), 46 pp., second, enlarged edition in two parts (Tel Aviv, 1950), 220 pp.; Oysgetriknte oygn (Dried eyes), poems from and about the Holocaust, with an additional word and literary appreciation from Binyumin Mints, and a preface by the author (Paris: Bashaar, 1947), 51 pp.; Shimke (Shimke), a novel about children in the world war (Tel Aviv, 1952), 410 pp.; Lemala min hashemesh (Beyond the sun), a novel of yeshiva life (Tel Aviv, 1954), 360 pp.; Li hashir (The song is for me), children’s poetry (Jerusalem, 1957), 60 pp.; Otsar mishle ḥasidim (Treasures from the parables of the Hassidim), 3 parts (Tel Aviv, 1956, 1957, 1958), 400 pp.; Gesher tsar (Narrow bridge), a novel of Hassidic life (Tel Aviv, 1958).  He also edited and prepared for publication a collection of religious stories, Mivḥar sipure masoret (Selection of traditional stories) (Tel Aviv, 1958), 222 pp.  He died in Israel.