KHAYIM KRUL

KHAYIM KRUL (April 11, 1892-February 1, 1946)

            He was a poet, born in Lodz, descended from a rabbinical lineage.  He studied in religious elementary school.  He was early on left an orphan.  Until 1914 he worked in a weaving plant.  In 1922 he emigrated to the United States.  Already in his youth, he was suffering from a sleep and shivering illness, and he experienced a tragic love.  He debuted in print in Lodz’s Gezangen (Songs).  He published poems and on occasion literary articles in: Yung-idish (Yong Yiddish), Vegn (Pathways), Shveln (Thresholds), S’feld (The field), Seglen (Sails), Oyfgang (Rise), Nay-idish (New Yiddish), Shriftn (Writings) 7-8, Kanader vokhnblat (Canadian weekly newspaper), Tsukunft (Future), Frayhayt (Freedom), Shikago (Chicago), Literarishe heftn (Literary notebooks), Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor), and Oyfkum (Arise), among other serials.  His work also appeared in: Naye yidishe dikhtung (Modern Yiddish poetry) (Iași, 1947); Avraham Tsvi Halevy’s Mehashira haidit baamerika (From the Yiddish poetry in America) (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1967).  His works include: Loybn (Praises) (Lodz: Yung-idish, 1920), 31 pp.; Himlen un opgrunt (Skies and precipice) (Lodz: Akhrid, 1921), 40 pp.; Inderlayterung (Purification) (New York: Eygene, 1925), 91 pp.; Arun zikh, roman, lider, eseyen (Around oneself, novel, poetry, essays) (Vilna: B. Kletskin, 1930), 69 pp., 130 pp., 131 pp.; Ksovim fun khayim krul (The writings of Khayim Krul), with a bibliography (New York: Eygene, 1954), 189 pp.  “Virtually all of Krul’s poems were religiously erotic,” noted Zalmen Reyzen, “having actually written most of them in the style of a prayer; often sentimental, they nonetheless make an impression with their simplicity, freshness, intimate tone, and naïveté.”  “The shimmering quality of his word,” wrote Y. Y. Sigal, “the subtlety, gentleness of his sensibility, is the precarious babble of words in a child’s mouth which has just begun to speak.  Although in his overall world view,…there is something old, distant, and cold with respect to life, nonetheless his words remain so young, green, and fresh.”  He died in Paterson, New Jersey.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vo. 3; Dovid Bergelson, in In shpan (Vilna) (May 26, 1926); Y. Y. Sigal, in Shriftn (New York) 8; Yitskhok Bashevis, in Tsukunft (New York) (August 1943); Benyomen Grobard, A fertlyorhundert, esey vegn der yidisher literatur in amerike (A quarter century, essay on Yiddish literature in America) (New York, 1935), p. 188; Dovid Ignatov, Opgerisene bleter, eseyen, farblibene ksovim un fragmentn (Torn off sheets, essays, extant writings, and fragments) (Buenos Aires: Yidbukh, 1957), pp. 123-50; Borekh Rivkin, Yidishe dikhter in amerike (Yiddish poets in America) (Buenos Aires, 1959), pp. 220-26; Shimen Dovid Zinger, Dikhter un prozaiker, eseyen vegn shrayber un bikher (Poets and prose writers, essays on writers and books) (New York: Educational Dept. of Workmen’s Circle, 1959); Yankev Glatshteyn, In tokh genumen (In essence), vol. 2 (Buenos Aires, 1960), p. 286; Khayim Leyb Fuks, Lodzh shel mayle, dos yidishe gaystiḳe un derhoybene lodzh, 100 yor yidishe un oykh hebreishe literatur un kultur in lodzh un in di arumiḳe shtet un shtetlekh (Lodz on high, the Jewish spiritual and elevated Lodz, 100 years of Yiddish and also Hebrew literature and culture in Lodz and in the surrounding cities and towns) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1972), see index.

Dovid-Noyekh Miller