KHAYIM VOLF (J. WOLF)

KHAYIM VOLF (J. WOLF) (b. 1904)

            The adopted name of Yisroel Fridman, he was born in Zaromb (Zaręby Kościelne), Poland.  He studied in yeshivas in Lomzhe (Łomża) and Raduń (with the Chofets Chaim).  From 1924 he was living in Argentina.  In 1925 he moved for a time to Montevideo, Uruguay, and was a teacher there.  In 1928 he returned to Buenos Aires and became a linotypist in the publishing house of Di prese (The press).  He debuted in print in the anthology Tayfun (Typhoon) (Lomzhe, 1923).  In 1927 he edited the weekly newspaper Undzer lebn (Our life) in Montevideo.  Afterward he published poetry and stories in Di prese in Buenos Aires.  He contributed as well to Di fraye shriftn (The free writings) for Jewish socialist thought (under the editorship of Y.-N. Shteynberg) in London.  In book form: Betler, tsvelf gezangen (Beggars, twelve songs) (Buenos Aires, 1925), 26 pp.; Etisher sotsyalizm (Ethical socialism), with a foreword by Y.-N. Shteynberg and an afterword by Shmuel Niger (Warsaw, 1936), 256 pp.; Di ibergangs-gezelshaft, di misye fun etishn mentsh (Society in transition, the mission of an ethical man) (Warsaw, 1937), 177 pp.; Der khofets khayim zal, der frumster yid fun undzer dor (The Chofets Chaim, may his memory be for a blessing, the most devout Jew of our generation) (New York, 1940), 74 pp.; Mentsh un got (Man and God) (Buenos Aires, 1944), 282 pp.; Byologishe oyffasung fun mentsh un gezelshaft (Biological conception of man and society), “a new adaptation of the book, Etisher sotsyalizm” (Buenos Aires, 1946), 266 pp.; Dray eseyen (Three essays) (Buenos Aires, 1969), 263 pp.

Sources: Y. Botoshanski, in the anthology Dorem-amerike (South America) (Buenos Aires, 1925); Botoshanski, in Tsukunft (New York) (August 1931); Botoshanski, in Mame yidish (Mother Yiddish) (Buenos Aires, 1949), see index; P. Bizberg, in Der shpigl (Buenos Aires) (February 1, 1941); Sh. Rozhanski, Dos yidishe gedrukte vort un teater in argentine (The published Yiddish word and theater in Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1941), pp. 111, 129, 136, 163, 164; Antologye fun der yidisher literatur in argentine (Anthology of Yiddish literature in Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1944), p. 921; P. Kats, Yidishe literatur in argentine (Yiddish literature in Argentina) (1947).

Yankev Kohen

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 229.]