ARN PROPES

ARN PROPES (May 25, 1904-January 4, 1978)

            He was born in Mitave (Mitava), Courland (later, part of Latvia).  He graduated from the Riga Hebrew high school and the local teachers’ seminary, and he studied law at Prague University.  He was active in “Tseire-tsiyon” (Young Zionists).  He took part in Jewish self-defense against Petliura’s gangs.  He was the head of the Revisionist Betar in Poland.  He made aliya to the land of Israel in 1939.  He later moved to the United States.  In 1948 he returned to Israel and worked there for the Jewish Agency.  He published articles in: Haynt (Today) and Moment (Moment) in Warsaw.  He brought out the pamphlets: Dos lebn fun yoysef trumpeldor (The life of Joseph Trumpeldor) (Warsaw, 1929), 22 pp.; and Hefker oder yidnshtat, a por verter tsu der yidisher yugnt (Wanton or a Jewish state, a few words for Jewish youth) (Warsaw, 1936), 16 pp.  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), pp. 1862-63.

Yankev Kahan

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 434.]