YUDE KERSH

YUDE KERSH (May 28, 1909-September 26, 1980)

            He was born in Bzhezin (Brzezin), near Lodz.  He came from a laboring family.  He graduated from a Jewish senior high school in Vilna.  He was active in the Bund.  He spent WWII in the Soviet Union.  Afterward, he returned to Poland.  In 1957 he emigrated to Australia, and in 1968 he settled in Israel.  He began his journalistic work with Lodzher veker (Lodz alarm).  He went on to write essays, literary articles, and reportage pieces in: Naye folkstsaytung (New people’s newspaper), Yugnt-veker (Youth alarm), and Folks-shtime (Voice of the people); Melbourne’s Oystralishe yidishe nayes (Australian Jewish news), Unzer gedank (Our idea) which he edited, and Der landsman (The compatriot) which he co-edited; Israel’s Letste nayes (Latest news), Yisroel shtime (Voice of Israel), Lebns-fragn (Life issues), and Folksblat (People’s newspaper); and Unzer vort (Our word) in Paris; among others.  In book form: Velt un yid, eseyen un opshatsungen (World and Jew, essays and assessments) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1976), 574 pp.; Der veg fun a folk, eseyen (The path of a people, essays) (Tel Aviv: Yisroel-bukh, 1978), 403 pp.; Tsi iz frants kafka a yidisher shrayber? Eseyen (Is Franz Kafka a Jewish writer? Essays) (Tel Aviv: Amkho, 1981), 296 pp.  He died in Bat Yam.

Sources: 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), pp. 203-4; Y. Yanasovitsh, in Folk, velt un medine (Tel Aviv) (December 1976); Y. Kh. Biletski, in Yisorel shtime (Tel Aviv) (January 5, 1977).

Ruvn Goldberg

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 490.]