YOYSEF BERKOVITSH

YOYSEF BERKOVITSH (b. 1901)

He was born in Jassy, Romania.  After WWI, he became a teacher in Jewish schools in southern Bessarabia.  He later studied medicine in Italy.  For a short time he practiced as a pediatrician in Bessarabia.  In the 1930s, he published literary articles in: Di vokh (The week) and Shoybn (Glass) in Bucharest.  He published as well treatises on Yiddish literature in the Romanian Yiddish periodical press.  During WWII, he escaped to Russia and there he remained.

Source: Verbal information from Dr. Sh. Bikl.

YUDL BERKOVITSH

YUDL BERKOVITSH (b. September 1890)

He was born in Warsaw and was by trade a tailor.  In 1923 he settled in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  According to his letter to the managing committee of the Y. L. Peretz Writers Association in New York, dated November 1, 1928, he wrote poems for Penemer un penemlekh (Appearances, big and small) and Di prese (The press) in Buenos Aires.  Further information about him is unknown.

KHAYIM BERKOVITSH (CHAIM BERKOVICH)

KHAYIM BERKOVITSH (CHAIM BERKOVICH) (1917-1952)

He was born in Vyshneve, Polish Lithuania.  He was a student in the yeshivas of Lide (Lida), Raduń, and Mir.  He underwent a rescue when the yeshivas escaped from the Nazis.  He spent time in Russia as well as in the ghetto in Shanghai.  There he began publishing.  He came to the United States where he initially studied alone in the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary in New York and later became the headmaster there.  He published in Di yidishe shtime fun vaytn mizrekh (The Jewish voice of the Far East) in Shanghai and in Der yidisher almanakh (The Jewish almanac), a collection of religious thoughts, edited by Berish Mandlboym.  He used the pseudonyms: Dovid Yekubuts and Kh. Khanes.  In 1952, he died suddenly of a heart attack in New York.  He left behind manuscripts of Torah novellae and a variety of literary notes.

Source: Antologye fun religyeze lider un dertseylungen (Anthology of religious poems and stories), comp. Moyshe Prager (New York, 1955), pp. 584-88.

BREYNE BERKOVITSH

BREYNE BERKOVITSH (August 13, 1894-April 27, 1956)

She was born in Kherson, Ukraine.  After graduating from a Russian teachers’ seminary, she taught Russian in religious elementary schools, evening schools, and Saturday schools for working girls.  In 1920 she performed cultural-political work at the Soviet-Polish front.  In 1926 she emigrated to Canada.  She wrote in Russian from her earliest years.  Her first published work appeared in 1926, an article in Kamf (Struggle) in Toronto.  From that time on, she published feature pieces and memoirs in Keneder odler (Canadian eagle), and she also contributed to Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor), Tog (Day), and Tsukunft (Future).  On 1947 she received the Tsukunft prize for her story: “Der khersoner rebe, r’ ben tsiyen” (The Kherson rebbe, R. Ben Zion).

MORTKHE-MEYER BERK

MORTKHE-MEYER BERK

He was born in Piaski, Poland, near to Lublin, into a Hassidic family.  He married while still quite young, and he departed for the United States.  Two years later, he returned and settled in Bialystok where for the next forty years he taught Hebrew.  He chaired the teachers’ organization.  He published a series of short stories and sketches in Hamelits (The advocate) and Hatsfira (The siren) in Hebrew, and in Dos naye lebn (The new life) in Yiddish.  He was for many years a member of a literary circle and many times a member of its board.  He later worked as a teacher in a high school in Lukov.  We have no subsequent information.

Source: Byalistoker leksikon (Handbook of Bialystok) (1935), p. 196.

ZALMEN BEREZNYAK

ZALMEN BEREZNYAK

He was a laborer who came from the Vilna region.  From 1908 to 1935 he was living in Paris.  Over the years 1910-1911, he edited the weekly newspaper Parizer zhurnal (Paris journal).

Source: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon fun der yidisher literatur un prese (Biographical dictionary of Jewish literature and the press) (Warsaw, 1914).

A. BEREZNYAK (ABRAHAM ELIEZER BERESNIAK)

A. BEREZNYAK (ABRAHAM ELIEZER BERESNIAK)

     He was a publisher in Paris and the author of a Yiddish-Hebrew dictionary entitled Milon idi-ivri male (Complete Yiddish-Hebrew dictionary) (Paris, 1939-1941), 619 pp.  A second part, bound with the first, was quietly published in France during the period of the German occupation in 1940.  The dictionary appeared under Bereznyak’s pseudonym “Avak.”

Source: Yedies fun yivo (News from YIVO) (June 1949).