KHAYIM LASKER

KHAYIM LASKER (1906-1935)

            He lived in Minsk, Byelorussia.  In his youth he was a member of a Zionist youth organization, later becoming a metal worker and working his way through a trade school and high school.  A quiet, unassuming, and sickly man, he wrote personal, wistful lyrical poetry in Yiddish.  He debuted in print in 1927 in the literary supplement to Der yunger arbeter (The young worker), and he later published poems in: Shtern (Star) in Minsk, Der yunger pyoner (The pioneer), and other serials.  He also contributed work to Soveitshe vaysrusland (Soviet Byelorussia).  In book form (after his death): Tsum mayak (To the Mayak [bookshop]) (Minsk, 1935), 102 pp., with a preface by D. Kurland.  He died of tuberculosis in a Minsk hospital.

Sources: D. Kurland, preface to Tsum mayak (To the Mayak [bookshop]) (Minsk, 1935), pp. 3-14; N. Levin, in Shtern (Minsk) (Augiust 1938), pp. 96-99; H. Vaynroykh, Blut af der zun (Blood on the sun) (New York, 1950), pp. 63, 184-90; obituary notice in Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) (April 5, 1935).

Zaynvl Diamant

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 321.]