MOYSHE FERNHOF

MOYSHE FERNHOF (b. 1889)

            The son of Yitskhok Fernhof, he was born in Buczacz, eastern Galicia.  He received both a Jewish and a general education.  In 1911 he graduated from the Humanities Faculty of Lemberg University and received a doctoral degree.  He later lived in Stanisle (Stanislavov), Czernowitz, and after WWI, Lemberg.  From 1907 he was publishing poems, stories, and articles.  He debuted in print with two sketches in Gershom Bader’s Yudisher folks-kalendar (Jewish people’s calendar) in Lemberg (1907), and thereafter placed work in: Moyshe Frostig’s Yudisher kalendar (Jewish calendar), Yung-galitsyaner almanakh (Young Galician almanac), the anthology Di yugend (The youth), and Lemberger togblat (Lemberg daily newspaper); Der tog (The day) in Cracow; and Der veg (The way) and Di yudishe algemeyne tsaytung (The Jewish general newspaper) in Vienna; among others.  He was a regular contributor to the weekly newspaper Frayhayt (Freedom) in Czernowitz (among other items, he published there a series of feature pieces entitled “Lider fun lebn” [Poems of life]); and later he wrote for Der morgen (The morning) in Lemberg, Lodzher tageblat (Lodz daily newspaper), and Lublin’s Tageblat (Daily newspaper), as well as the Yiddish provincial press in Poland.  He was murdered by the Nazis in Poland in the years of WWII.

Sources: Yudishe kalendar (Lemberg) (1907); Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), see index; William Fernhof, in Sefer butshatsh (Volume for Buczacz) (Tel Aviv, 1956), p. 129; Shloyme Bikl, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (February 17, 1962).

Khayim Leyb Fuks