YITSKHOK FINKEL

YITSKHOK FINKEL (1907-early 1940s)

            The brother of Uri Finkel, he was born in Rakov (Rakaw), Minsk district, into a family of the village ritual slaughterer.  He studied with Talmud teachers and yeshivas in Rakaw, Baranovitsh, and Vilna.  As an external student, he went through four classes of high school, and over the years 1927-1931 he took a course of study at Dr. Sh. Y. Tsharno’s Polish-Hebrew teachers’ seminary in Vilna.  He was later a teacher in Rakaw’s Polish state school.  He directed the cultural and educational work in the town: library, drama circle, courses for orphans, and social assistance work.  In 1930 he published, together with Nekhemye Kaplan, a booklet of poems entitled Shtimungen (Moods) (Vilna, 1930), 13 pp.  He received an award from the “Tsentraler bildungs komitet” (“Tsebeka,” Central educational committee) for his monograph on Rakaw.  He published articles on community matters and Jewish life in Rakaw in: Haynt (Today), Moment (Moment), Bafrayung (Liberation), Arbeter-tsaytung (Workers’ newspaper), Hatsfira (The siren), Galim (Waves), and Yedies fun arbetndikn erets-yisroel (News of laboring Israel)—in Warsaw; Tog (Day), Tsayt (Times), Radyo (Radio), and Haatid (The future) in Vilna.  He also wrote under the initials and pseudonyms: Y. F., F. Ben-Tsien-Shloyme, Ben Avigayl, and Rakover.

Source: Leyzer Ran, 25 yor yung vilne (Twenty-five years of Young Vilna) (New York, 1955).

Leyzer Ran