MORTKHE-HILLEL KROSHNIK (MORDECAI KROSHNITZ)

MORTKHE-HILLEL KROSHNIK (MORDECAI KROSHNITZ) (b. January 6, 1915)

            He was born in Baranovitsh (Baranovichi), Byelorussia.  He studied in religious elementary school and a Tarbut school.  He graduated middle school in Vilna and a higher-level business course of study in Warsaw.  He was active among Labor Zionist youth.  He was in Soviet Russia during WWII, thereafter in Polish Upper Silesia, and later still among survivors in Germany.  From 1949 he was living in Israel, active in Mapam (United Workers’ Party) and later in Mapai-Avoda (Workers’ Party in the Land of Israel, Labor Party).  He debuted in print in 1931 in the Labor Zionist Frayhayt (Freedom) in Warsaw.  He wrote articles, stories, fables, and reportage pieces in: the Warsaw daily newspaper Dos vort (The word; later, Dos naye vort [The new word]), Minsk’s Oktyabr (October), and Paris’s Arbeter vort (Workers’ word); in the press of Jewish refugees in Germany; in Tsukunft (Future) in New York; and in Nayvelt (New world) in Tel Aviv; among others.  He served as editor of Bafrayung (Liberation) in Munich, the remembrance volumes Krasnobrod (Krasnobród) (Tel Aviv, 1956) and Lubtsh un delatitsh (Lubcha and Dzialacičy) (Haifa, 1971), and the yearbook Haifa, yorbukh far literatur un kunst (Haifa, yearbook for literature and art) (Haifa, 1963-1969).  His work appeared as well in Shmuel Rozhanski’s In dem eygenem land (In one’s own country) (Buenos Aires, 1973).  In book form: Eygns (One’s own) (Haifa, 1963), 31 pp.; Natur un mentsh (Nature and man) (Haifa, 1965), 50 pp.; Erd (Land) (Haifa, 1967), 48 pp.; Doyres (Generations) (Haifa, 1969), 52 pp.  Among his pen names: K. Hillel, Ben-Yankev, and M. K. Tsinshark.  He was last living in Kiryat-Ḥaim.

Sources: L. Shalit, in Afrikaner yidishe tsaytung (Johannesburg) (April 11, 1966); Yitskhok-Elkhonen Rontsh, in Yidishe kultur (New York) (May 1966); Y. Yanasovitsh, in Di prese (Buenos Aires) (May 6, 1970); Rivke Kope, Intim mitn bukh, mekhabrim, bikher, meynungen (Intimate with a book, authors, books, opinions) (Paris, 1973), pp. 295-306; Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York).

Ruvn Goldberg