YITSḤAK OGEN (YITSKHOK
NITSBERG) (June 29, 1909-May 26, 1991)
He was born in Vilna and studied in
religious elementary schools and the Vilna Hebrew high school. In 1929 he made aliya to the land of
Israel. He was employed in construction and
agriculture. He attended a teachers’
seminary in Jerusalem. In 1932 he left
for Vienna where he studied at university, participated in self-defense of
Jewish students in fighting against anti-Semitism, was arrested, spent several
weeks in jail, and was then deported from Austria. He then returned to Israel and took up
teaching and literary work. He began
writing at an early age, and he published his first Hebrew poem in Hamishtala (The [plant] nursery), a
weekly brought out by the youth movement “Hakokhav” (The star) and edited by A.
Luboshitski. At age seventeen he
received an award from the Warsaw Yiddish illustrated journal Velt-shpigel (World mirror) for his
story “Mayn ershte libe” (My first love).
He also published articles in other newspapers. He contributed as well to such Hebrew
periodicals as: Gilyonot (Tablets), Moznaim (Balance), Doar hayom (Today’s mail), Hadoar
(The mail), Niv (Expression), Musaf ledavar (Additional words), Hamashkif (The spectator), Bitsaron (Fortress), and Baderekh (On the road). In 1940, he and Y. Arikha were editing Hadifdefet (The pad of paper), a
literature book for pupils in Hebrew schools.
Among his works of poetry: Behizdakekhut,
shirim (Purifying, poems) (Tel Aviv: Gilyonot, 1934/1935), 169 pp.; Beshaar hakelaya vehapele, shirim (At
the gateway of the destruction and the wonder, poetry) (Tel Aviv: Gilyonot,
1938/1939), 53 pp.; Yesh moledet leish,
shirim (There is a homeland for man, poetry) (Tel Aviv: Ts. Linman,
1939/1940), 61 pp.; Bezaaf lel, shirim
(Angry at the night, poetry) (Jerusalem, 1942), 56 pp.; Al gesher halel, shirim (On the bridge of the night, poetry) (Tel
Aviv: N. Tverski, 1946/1947), 217 pp.; in the anthology Shira ivrit (The Hebrew poem) (Tel Aviv, 1948). He died in Tel Aviv.
Source:
D. Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the pioneers
and builders of the yishuv), vol. 4 (Tel Aviv, 1950), p. 1633.
Yankev Kahan
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