LEYZER-GERSHON FRIDENZON

LEYZER-GERSHON FRIDENZON (October 22, 1899-1943)

            The father of Yoysef Fridenzon, he was born in Viskit (Wiskitki), near Warsaw.  From 1920 he was publishing journalistic articles in the press of the Agudat Yisrael: Yud (Jew), Ortodoksishe bletlekh (Orthodox sheets) in Lodz (1920-1923), and fictional work in the Hebrew publication Deglanu (Our banner).  From 1924 he served as editor of the illustrated, monthly, family journal Beys yankev (House of Jacob) in Yiddish with the Polish supplement Wschód (East).  From July 1925 he published as well an Orthodox children’s journal Der kinder-gortn (The children’s garden).  He published articles in Der yidisher arbayter (The Jewish worker), central organ of “Poale Agudat Yisrael” (Workers of Agudat Yisrael) in Poland (Lodz, 1928-1932), and in the weekly newspaper Yidishe arbeter shtime (The voice of the Jewish worker) in Lodz (1936-1939).  He published a pamphlet entitled Tsu der yudisher yugend (To Jewish youth) (1922), 22 pp.  With Leyzer Shindler and Note Berliner, he edited an illustrated an alphabet and textbook for the first school year, entitled Yidish loshn (Yiddish language) (Lodz: Beys Yankev, 1932), 92 pp.  He also compiled a collection for children and youngsters entitled Der mames tsavoe (Mother’s will) (Lodz: Beys Yankev, 1936), 116 pp.  During the Nazi occupation, he was confined in the Warsaw Ghetto and directed the Beys Yankev school there.  In 1943 he was deported to Majdanek and murdered there.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Tsukunft (New York) (November 1946); Kh. Sh. Kazdan, Di geshikhte fun yidishn shulvezn in umophengikn poyln (The history of the Jewish school system in independent Poland) (Mexico City, 1947), pp. 495-97; Dos yidishe vort (New York) (Nisan [= March-April] 1960; Ḥeshvan [= October-November] 1962, p. 39; Tamuz-Av [= June-August] 1964, p. 12); Fun noentn over (New York) 3 (1957), p. 241.

Yankev Kahan