YERUKHEM RIMINIK

YERUKHEM RIMINIK (1901-October 23, 1941)

            Born in Lipovets, Ukraine, he was a critic and researcher in the fields of Yiddish literature and theater. He received a traditional Jewish education and attended a secular high school. From early on he wrote poetry and stories in Yiddish and Hebrew. In the 1920s he settled in Odessa and turned his attention to intensive research into the history of Yiddish literature and culture, as well as with collecting folkloric material. For some years, he was language editor for Odeser arbeter (Odessa laborer). An inveterate researcher, he energetically worked in archives and libraries, looking up the old wedding entertainers, actors, storytellers, people who from childhood were responsible for Jewish folkloric treasures. A passionate lover of books, he assembled a library of rare books and manuscripts. He was especially captivated by the history of Yiddish theater. Together with the literary scholar Arn Vorobeytshik and the historian Shoyel Borovoy, he prepared for publication a large volume of letters from Mendele Moykher-Sforim. The manuscript was turned over to the published Emes in Moscow in May 1941, but the war prevented it from being published. He was not drafted when the war erupted, because he suffered from a weak heart. He was unable to join the evacuation from Odessa, because his family had too many older and ill people. He was murdered by the Nazis on October 23, 1941, and his wife, three-year-old son, and elderly father all died later.

            He wrote a series of works on Yiddish literature, Yiddish theater, and Jewish schools in: Shriftn (Writings), Ratnbildung (Soviet education), and Tsaytshrift (Periodical) in Minsk; Royte velt (Red world), Sovetishe literatur (Soviet literature), and Biblyografisher zamlbukh (Bibliographic anthology) 1; an essay entitled “Redifes afn yidishn teater in rusland in di 80er yorn” (Persecution of the Yiddish theater in Russia in the 1880s), which appeared in the collection Teater-bukh (Theater book) (Kiev: Kultur-lige, 1927) on the fiftieth anniversary of the Yiddish theater; the collection Mendele un zayn tsayt (Mendele and his times) (Moscow: Emes, 1940), and Hamer (Hammer) in New York; among others. He compiled the collection Fargesene lider (Forgotten poems) (Moscow: Emes, 1939), 46 pp. In book form: Linetski un sholem-aleykhem (Linetski and Sholem-Aleichem) (Minsk: Shtern, 1939). He also translated: Max Hoelz, Funem vaysn kreyts tsu der royter fon (From the white cross to the red banner [original: Vom “Weissen Kreuz” zur roten Fahne]) (Kharkov: Ukrainian State Publishers for National Minorities, 1932), 400 pp.

Sources: Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1962), see index; Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York).

Berl Cohen 

[Additional information from: Chaim Beider, Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc., 2011), p. 366.]