YANKEV ROSEYN (JACOB RASSEN)

YANKEV ROSEYN (JACOB RASSEN) (January 19, 1905-June 21, 1986)

            He was born in Pumpyan (Pumpenai), Lithuania.  He studied in religious elementary school, later in the Russian-Hebrew public school in Shavel (Šiauliai).  He graduated from the Lithuanian Russian high school in Ponevezh (Panevėžys) in 1923, the agricultural academy in Datneve (Dotnuva), a division of Kovno University, and earned his degree in agronomy in 1930.  He worked for the government as an agronomist in the areas of Vilkovishk (Vilkaviškis) and Šiauliai.  He later directed the agricultural division of Lithuanian ORT (Association for the Promotion of Skilled Trades) and subsequently its school farm in Ungarina (Ungaryn) near Mariampol and the Kalinova estate near Kovno.  He survived WWII in the ghettos of Dvinsk (Dinaburg, Daugavpils) and Riga, the concentration camps of Latvia, and among the partisans.  He left the displaced persons’ camps in German in 1946 for the United States.  He lived there in Brookline.  He published numerous articles on agricultural topics in the Kovno dailies: Folksblat (People’s newspaper), Dos vort (The word), and Idishe shtime (Jewish voice), as well as edited (with the agronomist Yitskhok Kagan) the latter’s weekly supplement Vinkl far shtubiker landvirtshaft (Corner for domestic agriculture).  In pamphlet and book form: Shenste tsimer blumen (The most beautiful indoor flowers) (1932), 106 pp.; Bayshtubiker grins-gortn (Indoor vegetable garden), Moderner frukht-gortn (Modern fruit garden), Inspektn-gertneray un blumen-tsukht (Garden inspection and flower cultivation), Nutsung un iberarbetung fun frukht, yagdes un grins (Use and modification of fruit, berries, and vegetables), Moderne oyfes-tsukht far hakhnose (Modern fowl breeding for income), and Hakhnose fun milkh un milkh-produktn (Income from milk and milk products)—all published by ORT (Kovno, 1932-1939).  He edited: Mir vern poyerim (We’re becoming farmers) (Kovno: ORT, 1936), 64 pp.; “Ort”-kalendar 1937 (ORT calendar for 1937), “for hand work, agriculture, and suburban small-scale economy” (Kovno: ORT, 1937), 200 pp.; Mir viln lebn (We want to live) (New York, 1950), 322 pp.;

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), cols. 501-2.