KHAYIM-MENAKHEM ROTBLAT (HAIM MANACHEM ROTHBLATT)

KHAYIM-MENAKHEM ROTBLAT (HAIM MANACHEM ROTHBLATT) (July 12, 1887-September 7, 1970)

            He was born in Dobrin (Dobrzyń nad Wisłą), Poland.  He studied in religious elementary schools and yeshivas until eighteen years of age.  He was later an external student in Warsaw.  He worked as a teacher in Koyl (Kolo), later in Vlotslavek (Włocławek).  He was active in “Tseire-Tsiyon” (Zionist youth).  In 1921 he emigrated to the United States.  He lived for thirty-three years in Chicago, where he studied English literature, philosophy, history, and pedagogy.  From 1955 he was living in Los Angeles, where he worked as a teacher in the Yiddish-English high school.  He wrote literary critical and pedagogical essays and a small number of stories, mostly in Hebrew.  In Yiddish he contributed work to: Idisher kuryer (Jewish courier) and Indritses yontef-bleter (Indrits’s holiday writings) in Chicago; and Kheshbn (Accounting) in Los Angeles.  He published longer works in the Buenos Aires philosophical journal Davke (Necessarily)—on Judah Halevi, William Nathanson, and others.  In book form in Yiddish: Fun undzer kval (From our source), essays (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1967), 177 pp.  In Włocławek he wrote a play entitled Di blinde muter (The blind mother) which was subsequently lost.  His pen names: Ben Yekhezkl, Menakhem Dorbzinski, and Kh. Menakhem.  He died in Los Angeles.

Sources: Yisroel-Mortkhe Biderman, in Tsukunft (New York) 1 (1968); Hadoar (New York) (Tishre 9 [= September 21], 1969); Zev-Volf Sales, in Kheshbn (Los Angeles) 61-62 (1970-1971).

Berl Cohen