D. (YOYSEF-DOVID) NOVOGRUDSKI

D. (YOYSEF-DOVID) NOVOGRUDSKI (b. 1896)

            The brother of Bernard and Emanuel Novogrudski, he was born in Warsaw, Poland.  He received both a Jewish and a general education.  He worked as a teacher of natural science in Warsaw schools.  For a time he was active in the socialist Jewish youth organization “Tsukunft” (Future) in Warsaw.  After WWI he left for Soviet Russia, where he was an active leader in Jewish school and cultural work.  In 1937, during the Moscow show trials, he was exiled to various camps, before being freed in 1944.  For a time he lived in Moscow, later in Alma-Ata and other places.  His writing activities commenced with articles in the Bundist biweekly serial Sotsyalistishe yugnt-shtime (Voice of socialist youth) in Warsaw (1919).  In Soviet Russia he was a contributor to Yungvald (Young forest), Pyoner (Pioneer), Der emes (The truth), and Af di vegn tsu der nayer shul (On the road to the new school), all in Moscow, as well as periodicals in Minsk and Kiev—in which, on the whole, he wrote about cultural and school matters, reviews of school books, and translations from Russian into Polish.  He was the author of: Pyonern, yunge naturalist (Pioneers, young naturalists), a textbook of natural science (Moscow: Shul un bukh, 1925), 143 pp., with drawings and pictures.  He translated from Russian to Yiddish: S. Sokolov, Kuk zikh tsu tsu der natur (Pay attention to nature) (Moscow, 1927), 4 booklets, each 64 pp.; and M. Agapov and S. Sokolov, Yunger geograf (Young geographer), geography textbook (Moscow, 1927), 126 pp.  He was last living in Moscow.

Sources: Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), see index; Y. Ratner and M. Kvitni, Dos yidishe bukh in f.s.s.r. in di yorn 1917-1921 (The Yiddish book in the USSR for the years 1917-1921) (Kiev, 1930), nos. 700-2; M. Anilovitsh and M. Yofe, Shriftn fun psikhologye un pedagogik (Writings on psychology and pedagogy) 1 (Vilna: YIVO, 1933), p. 492; information from Emanuel Novogrudski and Sh. Herts in New York.

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Additional information from: Chaim Beider, Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc., 2011), pp. 245-46.]