YANKEV LANDAU

YANKEV LANDAU (b. October 1900)

            He was born in Zavyertshe (Zawiercie), Poland, the son of a rabbi and grandson of Avrom Tshekhanover, author of Bet avraham (The house of Abraham).  At age eighteen, he became one of the principals of at the Zawiercie yeshiva.  He was a cofounder of the “Tseire emune yisrael” (Young believers in Israel) in Poland.  In 1920 he moved to France, and he worked as a teacher in the senior high school of Rabbi Shimen-Rifoel Hirsh and an instructor in the high school of Dr. Shloyme Broyer.  He was active in the youth movement Ezra (Relief) and in the German “Tseire agudat yisrael” (Agudat Yisrael youth).  In 1923 he published articles in the German Jewish weekly newspaper Der Israelit (The Israelite), in the monthly Ezra, and elsewhere.  He translated the work of Dr. Isaac Breuer and Franz Rosenzweig into Hebrew and Yiddish.  He stood at the head of the Israel Center of Agudat Yisrael.  In 1933 he made aliya to Israel, where he was a cofounder of Poale Agudat-Yisrael (Workers of Agudat Yisrael).  In 1934 he visited Western Europe, and in 1938 Lithuania and Latvia.  He worked for the rescue of survivors.  In 1944 and 1948 he visited the United States, where he influenced the leaders of the Aguda to take part in the declaration of the state of Israel.  After returning to Israel, he was appointed by the general administration of Rabbi Yitsḥak Meir Levin’s Ministry of Social Security.  He published journalistic and literary articles in the Hebrew-language: Baderekh (On the road), Deglanu (Our banner), and Darkenu (Our way); the Polish monthly Morija, miesięcznik literacko-społeczny poświęcony żydowskiej myśli religijnej (Moriya, monthly literary society devoted to Jewish religious thought) in Warsaw; Yavne (Yavneh) in Lemberg; Haneeman (The faithful) in Telz, Lithuania; and others.  In Yiddish: Dos yudishe togblat (The Jewish daily newspaper) in Warsaw; Arbeter-shtime (Voice of labor) in Lodz; Haynt (Today) in Riga; Dos yudishe leben (The Jewish life) in Kovno. 

Source: D. Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the pioneers and builders of the yishuv), vol. 5 (Tel Aviv, 1952), pp. 2176-77.

Yankev Kohen