YISROEL MIKHAL

YISROEL MIKHAL (b. December 10, 1899)

            He was born with the surname Mikhelevitsh in Abel (Obeliai), Lithuania.  He was raised in a settlement by his father the lessee.  He studied in religious elementary school, later in a yeshiva in Vilna.  In 1927 he immigrated to South Africa and in 1970 made aliya to Israel.  He wrote stories for Afrikaner idishe tsaytung (African Jewish newspaper) in Johannesburg.  When he was eighty-six years of age, he published Fun yener zayt vald. roman (From the other side of the woods, a novel) (Tel Aviv, 1985), 294 pp.—a first effort with true literary maturity.

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 547.