MORTKHE MARKELES

MORTKHE MARKELES (1898-summer 1942)

            He was born in Vilna, Lithuania.  He studied in religious elementary school and synagogue, and later in the yeshiva of the Chofetz Chaim in Radin.  From the 1920s he was active in the Orthodox movement.  Over the years 1926-1932, he was one of the leading contributors to (and for a time editor of) Dos vort (The word) in Vilna, while at the same time placing work in: Dos yudishe togblat (The Jewish daily newspaper), Deglanu (Our banner), and Darkhenu (Our path)—in Warsaw; Beys-yankev zhurnal (Beys-Yankev journal) in Lodz; Dos naye leben (The new life) in Bialystok; and elsewhere.  He was confined in the Bialystok ghetto, and at the time of the second Aktion, he was deported to Treblinka and murdered there.

Source: Information from his brother, Rabbi Elozer Markeles, in New York.

Khayim Leyb Fuks