AVROM RIVES

AVROM RIVES (July 15, 1900-April 1963)

            The author of stories, he was born Avrom Neymovitsh in Lomzhe, Poland.  He attended religious elementary school, later graduating from a technical trade school, where they also taught Russian, Polish, and Hebrew.  He was active in the Labor Zionist movement.  In 1924 he made his way to the land of Israel.  He worked in the construction of roadways and spent twenty years in a factory in Tel Aviv.  In 1929 he joined the newly founded literary club in Tel Aviv.  He began writing feature pieces in 1922 (under the pen name Namuni) and articles in the Lomzhe Labor Zionist serial Der hamer (The hammer), issue 2.  He also placed feuilletons in Dos yidishe lomzhe (Jewish Lomzhe), published by YISHO (Jewish School Organization).  In 1923 he helped to published in Lomzhe a literary journal Tayfun (Typhoon), and in it he placed a novella, using for the first time the pseudonym A. Rives.  He published stories and literary essays in: Velt-shpigl (World mirror), Oyfgang (Arise), Arbeter-tsaytung (Workers’ newspaper), and Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves) in Warsaw; Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor), Forverts (Forward), and Oyfkum (Arise) in New York; Dorem-afrike (South Africa) in Johannesburg; and in Israel, Shtamen (Roots), Erets-yisroel shriftn (Writings from the land of Israel), Undzers (Ours) (1940, 1949), Nayvelt (New world), Di goldene keyt (The golden chain), and Yisroel shriftn (Israeli writings), among others.  In Letste nayes (Latest news) he published reportage pieces and feuilletons, using the pen name A. Narevski.  His work also appeared in: Arie Shamri, Vortslen (Roots) (Tel Aviv, 1966); Mordekhai Ḥalamish, Mikan umikarov, antologya shel sipure yidish beerets yisrael (From near and from far away, anthology of stories in Yiddish in Israel) (Merḥavya, 1966).  His writings include: Iberflants, dertseylungen (Transplant, stories) (Tel Aviv, 1947), 207 pp.; Mit der shif tshitsherin, roman (On the ship Tshitsherin, a novel) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1959), 204 pp.  “Rives wrote authentic and fine stories,” wrote Meylekh Ravitsh, “drawn from life in the land of Israel and always from the laboring, suffering man.”  He was “one of that group of Yiddish writers,” noted Shmuel Izban, “who made their contribution to Yiddish prose in Israeli literature….  A new epoch was to be depicted, the pathway of a pioneering generation which returned to the land of Creation….  A. Rives helped in his sweeping language to write the Genesis chapter.”  He died in Tel Aviv.

Sources: Meylekh Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 3 (Montreal, 1958); L. Kheyn, in Nayvelt (Tel Aviv) 52 (1947); Y. Botoshanski, in Di prese (Buenos Aires) (February 11, 1948); Shimen Ernst, in Idishe tsaytung (Buenos Aires) (December 30, 1948); Mark Shveyd, in Forverts (New York) (July 3, 1949); Shmuel Izban, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (March 30, 1959); Avrom Volf-Yasni, in Letste nayes (Tel Aviv) (May 25, 1959); Yankev-Tsvi Shargel, Fun onheyb on (From the beginning forward) (Tel Aviv, 1977), pp. 47-50; Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York).

Berl Cohen