IDE LUNSKI

IDE LUNSKI (1889-March 19, 1924)

            She was the sister of Khaykl Lunski, born in Slonim, Byelorussia, to a father who was a teacher in a religious elementary school.  In 1896 she moved with her parents to Vilna, where she graduated from a Russian high school and a Hebrew school.  For a time she studied pedagogy at the University of Berlin.  From 1911 until her death, she worked as a teacher of natural science in Jewish public schools and in the Jewish high school in Vilna.  For a time she worked in the dormitory for Vilna children in Otvosk (Otwock).  In 1914 she began to publish children’s stories in Grininke beymelekh (Little green trees) in Vilna, and later she contributed as well to Vilner tog (Vilna day), as well as to the Hebrew children’s magazine Shovelim (Trails) in Warsaw (1922-1923), among others.  In books form, she published: Dertseylungen vegn vilde mentshn (Stories about wild people) (Vilna, 1922), 56 pp., with pictures.  In the summer of 1923 she became ill with tuberculosis, and she traveled to Vienna to recover; she died there.  On the first anniversary of her death, a work of hers appeared in print: Der ayzperyod (The ice age) (Vilna, 1925), including estimations of her by Khaykl Lunski, Sh. L. Tsitron, Zalmen Reyzen, and Gershon Pludermakher.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 2 (under the biography for Khaykl Lunski); Di naye shul (Vilna) 1-3 (1924), pp. 146-47.

Khayim Leyb Fuks