MENAKHEM STEMPL

MENAKHEM STEMPL (b. 1901)

            He was born in Lantsut (Łańcut), near Cracow, Galicia.  He received a religious Jewish education, later becoming a laborer.  In 1922 he moved to the land of Israel.  For a time he lived on a kibbutz, later working with stones in building roads and homes in Nes-Tsiyona, Tel Aviv, and other places.  He began writing poetry on Israeli themes in the Yiddish publications of the left Labor Zionists, subsequently contributing to: Onhoyb (Beginning) in Jerusalem; and Eyns (One), Tsvey (Two), Dray (Three), Eygns (One’s own), and Nayvelt (New world), among others, in Tel Aviv.  In books form: Af der shvel fun likhtikn tog (At the threshold of a lit-up day), poetry (Tel Aviv, 1928), 32 pp., with a preface by Daniel Leybl.  His work was represented in Erets-yisroel in der yidisher literatur (The land of Israel in Jewish literature) (Tel Aviv, 1961).  In 1934 he left Israel, and from that point there has been no further information about him available.

Sources: Daniel Leybl, preface to Af der shvel fun likhtikn tog (At the threshold of a lit-up say) (Tel Aviv, 1928), pp. 4-5; F. B., in Onhoyb (Jerusalem) (August 1928); A. Tabatshnik, in Kultur (Chicago) (1929); A. Rives, in Eygns (Tel Aviv) April 1929); Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) (September 7, 1929); information from Sh. Izban in New York.

Khayim Leyb Fuks