SHOLEM LURYA

SHOLEM LURYA (August 19, 1920-2011)

            He was born in Kiev, the son of Zelik Kalmanovitsh.  He moved with his family to Vilna in 1928.  He studied in the Jewish senior high school.  In 1938 he made aliya to Israel.  From 1941 he was living in Kibbutz Merḥavya.  From 1974 he was a lecturer in Hebrew literature at Haifa University.  His doctoral thesis (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1977) was: Halashon hafigurativit biyetsirato haduleshonit shel mendele mokher sefarim (Figurative language in the bilingual works of Mendele Moykher-Sforim).  He published literary research essays on Yiddish literature, mostly in Hebrew: on A. B. Yehoshua in Goldene keyt (Golden chain) (Tel Aviv) 90 (1976); on Mendele documents in Goldene keyt 92 (1977); on Dan Miron in Goldene keyt 108 (1982); on Sh. Y. Abramovitsh’s verse in Yidishe kultur (Jewish culture) (New York) 5-6 (1983); on Moyshe Kulbak in Shevut (Repatriation) (Tel Aviv) 9 (1982); on Avrom Sutskever in Yikhes fun lid (Poetic pedigree), edited by Dov Sadan (Tel Aviv, 1983), pp. 103-21; on Eli Shekhtman, in Shevut 10 (1984).  He edited and translated the first edition of Mendele’s Haishon hakatan / Dos kleyne mentshele (The little man), with a long introduction (Haifa, 1984), 139 pp.  He translated Yankev Shteynberg’s “Di umetike libe” (Lonesome love), in Dapim lemeḥkar besifrut (Pages of literary research) (Haifa) 1 (1984), pp. 8-35; and Shteynberg’s long poem “Rusland” (Russia) in Dapim lemeḥkar besifrut 2 (1984), pp. 8-72.  To his father’s Yoman begeto vilna ukhetavim min haizavon shenimtseu baharisot (Diary of the Vilna ghetto and writings from the literary behest found in the ruins), he wrote an introduction: “Zelik Kalmanovitsh, the man and his world” (Tel Aviv, 1977), pp. 9-59.  Among his later work: editor of Aba kovner, mivḥar maamre bikoret al yetsirato (Abba Kovner, a selection of review articles on his work) (Tel Aviv, 1988), 284 pp.  He was preparing work on Mendele, Perets Markish, and Arn Shteynberg’s essays in Yiddish with a lengthy introduction.

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), cols. 326-27.