YANKEV LIFSHITS

YANKEV LIFSHITS (b. ca. 1866)

            He was born in Lemberg, eastern Galicia.  He attended religious elementary school and yeshiva and studied secular subject matter as well.  In 1898 he debuted in print with an article in Haivri (The Jew) in Lemberg.  He was among the first contributors to G. Bader’s Tog-blat (Daily newspaper) in Lemberg (1904), in which he published stories and images of Jewish life in Galicia.  He also placed work in Bader’s Yudisher folks-kalendar (Jewish people’s calendar) and Shtrahlen (Beams) anthologies, as well as Moyshe Frostik’s Yudishe kalendar (Jewish calendar) (1909-1913).  He was on close personal terms with Yiddish and Hebrew writers, who around the years 1905-1914 lived in Lemberg, among them: G. Shofman and Yankev Mestel.  During the years of WWI, he became a prompter in Gimpl’s Yiddish theater in Lemberg and from that point wrote no more.  He was still living in Lemberg in 1934.  Subsequent information remains unknown.

Sources: Gershon Bader, Medina veḥakhameha (The state and its sages) (New York, 1934), p. 151; Dr. M. Naygreshl, in Fun noentn over (New York) 1 (1955), pp. 321-22.

Khayim Leyb Fuks