YOYEL PERL (JOEL PEREL)

YOYEL PERL (JOEL PEREL) (1903-April 14, 1976)

            He was born in Lutsk, Volhynia.  He received both a Jewish and a general education.  In 1923 he graduated from a Polish Jewish high school and went on to study the humanities and pedagogy at the Wszechnica senior high school in Warsaw, receiving his teaching degree from there in 1932.  In 1925 he became a teacher in Tsisho (Central Jewish School Organization) schools in the workers’ evening courses.  From 1932 until the outbreak of WWII, he worked as an educator in the Curative Pedagogical Institute for Children with Disabilities in Otvosk (Otwock).  He fled from Poland and until mid-1941 worked as an instructor in children’s homes and a teacher of mathematics in Lutsk and Kiev.  In 1953 he was sentenced to ten years in prison “for spreading nationalist and Zionist literature and nationalism.”  He was sent off to the Gulag in the distant North, but he was freed in 1956 and returned to Poland, from which he left in 1961 for Israel.  He debuted in print with a ballad in blank verse in Shprotsungen (Sprouts) 1 (1925) in Warsaw (he edited this journal with M. Zilbershteyn).  He published poems, stories, and other literary items in: the second and third issues of Shprotsungen, Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves), and Arbeter tsaytung (Workers’ newspaper), among others, in Warsaw; and Der shtern (The star) in Kiev.  He was a translator and author of children’s plays which were performed in the Yiddish schools of Poland, among others: Nisht gearbet, nisht gegesn (Didn’t work, didn’t eat) by Y. Vinogradov.  From 1963 he was publishing in Letste nayes (Latest news) in Tel Aviv portions of his two-volume Mayne zekhtsik yor (My sixty years), the fifth part of his memoirs, Hinter farriglte toyern (Behind bolted gates), 377 pp., appeared in book for.  He authored an autobiographical novel in five volumes: Dem morgnshtern antkegn (Opposite the morning star) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1967), 403 pp.; In sheyn fun morgnshtern (In the light of the morning star) (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1968), 352 PP.; Der morgnshtern hot antoysht (The morning star disappointed) (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1969), 272 pp.; Der morgnshtern baym tsofn-polus (The morning star at the North Pole) (Herzliya: Ḥavatselet, 1969), 222 pp.; Der morgnshtern shaynt shoyn vider (The morning star shines on further) (Herzliya: Ḥavatselet, 1973), 316 pp.—in three volumes in Hebrew: Lamed-vav avivim, 1903-1939, roman otobiyografi beshalosh ḥalakim (Thirty-six springs, 1903-1939, an autobiographical novel in three parts) (Herzliya: Ḥavatselet, 1970), 281 pp.; Hashaḥar hikhziv (Dawn has failed) (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1958), 205 pp.; Lelo shaḥar (Without dawn) (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1968), 167 pp.  He worked as a high school teacher in Herzliya and died in Kibbutz Ma’agan Michael.

Perl and the title page of Dem morgnshtern antkegn

Source: Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), see index.

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 432.]