NEKHAME LONDON

NEKHAME LONDON (January 15, 1899-March 9, 1962)

            The sister of Sh. Y. Londinski, she was born in Semyatitsh (Siemiatycze), not far from Brisk (Brest), into a religious family.  She received a Jewish and a general education, graduating from a state high school in Moscow.  From her early youth she was active among the left Labor Zionists in Poland and Russia.  She worked together with Ber Borokhov.  In 1914 she went as a pioneer to Israel, but because she became ill with malaria, she had to leave.  She then settled in Odessa where, under the influence of Kh. N. Bialik, she began writing poetry in 1917.  After WWI she moved to Warsaw, Poland, where she was an educator in Borokhov children’s homes.  In 1927 she moved to Toronto, Canada.  From 1929 she was living in the United States.  She studied at the Jewish teachers’ seminary in New York and for a time worked as a teacher.  Her first poem, entitled “Shney” (Snow), was published in Fraye arbeter-shtime (Free voice of labor) in New York (1933), and from that point she published poetry in: Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal), Di feder (The pen), Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter), Tsukunft (Future), Kinder-zhurnal (Children’s magazine), and Nyu yorker vokhnblat (New York weekly newspaper), among others, in New York.  Her poems “Shney” and “Fidl-tener” (Violin notes), translated into Hebrew by S. Kahan, were included in Solomon Golub’s collection of Yiddish and Hebrew songs (New York, 1936).  Her poetry was also translated into Russian and published in Russkii golos (Russian voice) in New York (1942).  She died in New York.

Khayim Leyb Fuks