AVROM SHTERN

AVROM SHTERN (July 12, 1878-March 2, 1955)

            He was born in Tishevits (Tyszowce), Poland, the father of Yankev Ziper and Yekhiel, Sholem, and Yisroel-Hersh Shtern.  He descended from a Hassidic family.  He studied in yeshivas and received ordination into the rabbinate.  He was a ritual slaughterer, later a religious judge until he came to Montreal in 1938.  He wrote Torah novellae and Hassidic folk tales.  In Shtern’s Sefer kevutsat kitve agada (Collection of homiletical writings) (Montreal, 1943), there was added (to the 496 pages on Hebrew) 96 pages in Yiddish, which recount Jewish life in Poland, Lithuania, and Canada.  In his Ḥutim hameshulashim (Eternal triangles) (Montreal, 1953), 213 pp., there also Hassidic tales included.  After his death, there appeared in print Khsidishe mayses (Hassidic tales) (Tel Aviv, 1959/1960), 99 pp.  The third part of his 1947 edition of Sefer kevutsat kitve agada (Montreal) is in Yiddish.  He died in Montreal.

Sources: Khayim Liberman, in Forverts (New York) (March 29, 1950); Shmuel Niger, in Tog (New York) (March 7, 1954); Yisroel Rabinovitsh, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (March 4, 1955).

Khayim Leyb Fuks