ELI BEYDER

ELI BEYDER (1920-2003)

            He was poet, born in the town of Dunevets (Dunavets), Ukraine. In 1939 he graduated from the last Jewish middle school in Kiev and immediately was drafted into the military, where he served for twenty-four years. He took part in WWII. He began writing poetry at age sixteen, his first publication appearing in 1946 in a compilation brought out by the Jewish Committee in Białystok. Beginning in the 1960s, when he had settled in Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod), he published poetry and translations from Russian in Sovetish heymland (Soviet homeland), as well as in Folks-shtime (Voice of the people) in Warsaw and Naye prese (New press) in Paris. He was among the founders of the association and the club of Yiddish culture in the city of Gorky. He made aliya to Israel in 1990 and settled in Jerusalem. In 1992 Yerusholaimer almanakh (Jerusalem anthology) brought out his poetry cycle, and thereafter his poetry began to appear in a variety of serials in Israel and in other countries. Especially favored among his work were his miniatures.

            His writings include: Troymen un var (Dreams and reality), poetry collection (Tel Aviv, 1994); Mayn zunik heymland, lider (My sunny homeland, poetry) (Tel Aviv: Yidisher kultur-gezelshaft, 1996), 96 pp.; Unter hoykhe himlen (Under the great sky), poetry and essays (Jerusalem, 1999); Farkemte makhshoves (Polished thoughts), poems and prose in Yiddish, Russian, and Hebrew (Tel Aviv: H. Leivik Publ., 2004), 184 pp.; Tkufes in mayn lebn (Eras in my life) (Jerusalem, 2006), 231 pp.

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), pp. 44-45.