Sunday 29 October 2017

YITSKHOK-DOVID MINTSBERG

YITSKHOK-DOVID MINTSBERG (1903-winter 1942)
            He was born in Łuków, Shedlets (Siedlce) district, Poland, into a rabbinical home.  He studied in a number of different yeshivas.  Over the years 1921-1930, he was active in Agudat Yisrael in Ostrov-Mazovyetsk (Ostrów-Mazowiecka).  He was a cofounder of Beys-Yankev schools in Poland.  After the death of Rabbi Shapiro in 1933, he became the spiritual leader of Yeshivat ḥokhme lublin (Yeshiva of the sages of Lublin).  He contributed articles, literary essays, and translations of Hassidic tales to: Ortodoksishe yugend-bleter (Orthodox youth sheets), Dos yudishe togblat (The Jewish daily newspaper), Haderekh (The way), Deglanu (Our banner), and Darkhenu (Our path)—in Warsaw; Beys-yankev zhurnal (Beys Yankev journal), Der yudisher arbayter (The Jewish worker), and Di yudishe shtime (The Jewish voice) in Lodz; and Dos vort (The word) in Vilna; among others.  He also wrote under the pen names: Bar Be Rov and Rav Domi.  When the Germans entered Lublin, he fled to Ostrów-Mazowiecka, and from they to Lekhevits (Lakhve, Lyakhivtsi).  He was confined in its ghetto, and he later was hidden in a bunker.  In the winter of 1942 the Nazis dragged him out of the bunker naked, forcibly led him to the Umschlagplatz, and shot him there.

Sources: Y. Emyot, dedication to Trialetn (Warsaw, 1936), as well as personal information; Y. Fridenzon, in Ela ezkera (These I remember), vol. 3 (New York, 1959), pp. 200-6; T. Makover, in Sefer hazikaron likehilat ostrov-mazovyetsk (The remembrance book for the Jewish community of Ostrów-Mazowiecka) (Tel Aviv, 1960), p. 571.
Khayim Leyb Fuks


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