SHLOYME GRINSHPAN

SHLOYME GRINSHPAN (b. October 1, 1912)

            He was born in Plotsk (Płock), Poland, to devout parents.  He received a religious Jewish education in elementary school, public school, and with private tutors.  He was an active leader in the Zionist Pioneer movement in Plotsk, secretary of the right Labor Zionists.  From 1938 he was living in the United States.  He began publishing articles on Zionist and youth issues in the monthly Plotsker vort (Plotsk word) in 1936, and later in the weekly newspaper Plotsker lebn (Plotsk life) in 1937.  He also contributed to Nyu-yorker vokhnblat (New York weekly newspaper) and Oyfsnay (Afresh) in New York, among others.  In the collection Plotsk (Buenos Aires, 1945), he published “Dos yidishe plotsk erev dem tsveytn velt-krig” (Jewish Plotsk on the eve of WWII).  He excelled through his work for YIVO in New York with an article in a contest: “Forvos bin ikh avek fun der alter heym, un vos hob ikh dergreykht in amerike” (Why I left my old home, and what I have accomplished in America) (New York, 1942).  Together with the poet Khaim Flaks, he edited Plotsker vort; Plotsker lebn (with Shlkoyme Mints, Shloyme Kalisher, and Gershon Khanakhovitsh); and co-editor of Plotsker yizker-bukh (Plotsk memorial book).  He also wrote Yidn in plotsk (Jews in Płock) (New York, 1960), 325 pp.

Source: Plotsk (Buenos Aires, 1945), p. 219.

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 181.]