MOYSHE NOTOVITSH

MOYSHE NOTOVITSH (1912-1968)

            He was born in Berdichev, Ukraine.  He graduated middle school and the literature department of Odessa Jewish Pedagogical Institute.  He was a literary critic.  He debuted in print in 1932.  In 1938 he defended a dissertation on the life and work of the classic Yiddish writer Yitskhok-Yoyel Linetski at the Lenin Pedagogical Institute in Moscow.  The dissertation was later published as a separate volume: Yitskhok-yoyel linetski (Yitskhok-Yoyel Linetski) (Moscow: Emes, 1939), 61 pp.  In 1945 he was a contributor and secretary of the department of Yiddish literature and art at the Moscow Yiddish theater studio, directed by Shloyme Mikhoels.  He lectured as well at the Odessa and Kiev Pedagogical Institutes.  He was also employed by the Yiddish radio in Moscow and was a member of the local anti-fascist committee.  He published reviews and essays about writers and books in Moscow’s Eynikeyt (Unity), newspaper of the anti-fascist committee.  In 1945 he completed in manuscript a book entitled Literarishe portretn (Literary portraits).  In 1949, he moved to Kazan, where for the last twenty years of his life he worked as a lecturer at Kazan Pedagogical Institute, teaching Russian and Western European literature.  He contributed literary criticism to Sovetish heymland (Soviet homeland) 2 and 3 (1961) in Moscow.  In that journal, he published a series of works on Soviet Yiddish writers: M. Viner, M. Grubyan, M. Litvakov, Yashe Bronshteyn, L. Kvitko, and others.  In book form: Kritik un kritiker (Criticism and critics) (Moscow: Sovetski pisatel, 1983), 63 pp.  He died in Kazan.

Sources: A. Pomerants, Almanakh fun yidishn folks-ordn (Almanac of the Jewish people’s order) (New York, 1940), p. 287; A. Kushnirov, in Naye prese (Paris) (July 27, 1945); B. Mark, in Folks-shtime (Lodz) 49 (1947); Y. Yanasovitsh, in Di naye tsayt (Buenos Aires) (October 22, 1953); N. Mayzil, Dos yidishe shafn un der yidisher shrayber in sovetnfarband (Jewish creation and the Jewish writer in the Soviet Union) (New York, 1959), see index; Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), see index.

Benyomen Elis

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 387; and 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. 246-47.]