SHOYEL YEDIDOVITSH

SHOYEL YEDIDOVITSH (December 23, 1890-1942)

            He was born in Vilna, where his father was a rabbi in the suburb of Shnipishok (Šnipiškės).  He studied in Rameyle’s yeshiva in Vilna.  In 1907 he was working as a Hebrew teacher in Petrovsk and Volsk (Vol’sk), Saratov district, Russia.  In 1911 he attended the Vilna Jewish teachers’ institute.  From 1912 he was a member of the Bund.  After graduating from the teachers’ institute (1915), he was for many years a teacher in secular Jewish schools in Vilna.  In 1917 he was elected to the Vilna committee of the Bund, and in 1919 to the central education committee of the secular Jewish schools in Vilna.  Over the years 1921-1924, he belonged to the Jewish Communist Labor Bund (Kombund), before returning to the Bund.  He wrote articles on community and educational topics in the Bundist organs: Unzer shtime (Our voice) (1918-1919) and Arbeter-lebn (Workers’ life) in Vilna; Naye tsayt (New times) (1920) in Kovno; Folkstsaytung (People’s newspaper) in Warsaw; and in the journals, Di naye velt (The new world) and Folksbildung (People’s education) published by the education committee for Lithuania and Byelorussia in 1919; and Di naye shul (The new shul); among others.  He was a member of the editorial board in Grininke beymelekh (Little green trees) and Haḥaver (The comrade) in Vilna.  In book form: Di geshikhte fun alef beys (The history of the alphabet) (Vilna, 1920), 46 pp.; Motsart un bethoven, zeyere kinder-yorn (Mozart and Beethoven, their childhood years) (Vilna, 1921), 42 pp.  Using the pen name Yedidye, he published translations from European literature.  He contributed to the compilation of the reader, Perets far yugnt (Perets for young people) (Vilna: B. Kletskin, 1923).  In Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO) (Vilna) 2.4-5 (1932), he published: “Di yidishe bafelkerung fun gluboke in tsifern” (The population of Gluboke [Glubokoye or Hlybokaye] in figures).  In 1931 he was a teacher in Lide (Lida).  He later moved to Gluboke, Vilna district, where together with his wife he ran a bakery which he inherited from his father-in-law.  He was killed in one of the Nazi massacres of Gluboke Jewry in 1942.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Kh. Pupko, in Vilne (Vilna) anthology, ed. Y. Yeshurin (New York 1935); Lerer-yizker-bukh (Remembrance volume for teachers) (New York, 1954), pp. 193-94.

Zaynvl Diamant