OSHER VOLK (VILKOMIRSKI)

OSHER VOLK (VILKOMIRSKI, ASHER WOLK) (August 4, 1913-November 16, 1991)

            He was born in Zhetel (Zdzięcioł), Minsk district, Byelorussia, into a rabbinical family.  His father was for thirty years rabbi in the Aḥavat Aḥim (Brotherly love) synagogue in the Bronx, New York.  He studied in religious elementary school and in the yeshivas of Baranovich and Mir.  Later (1929-1931), he studied at the Tarbut teachers’ seminary in Vilna.  In 1933 he moved to the United States, where he continued his education and graduated from Yeshiva University in New York.  During WWII he served in the American army—on the front in North Africa and Italy.  He worked in the publicity area for the American Zionist Organization.  He published Hebrew poetry in Niv (Utterance) in 1936 in New York, later children’s poems in Hadoar hanoar (The mail for youth) and Hadoar (The mail) in New York.  From 1939 he published also in Yiddish.  He wrote reportage pieces and articles for Dos idishe folk (The Jewish people) in New York (1939-1941), and later contributed to Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal), Tog (Day), and other serials in New York.  In 1943-1944, he published in Tog reportage works from the war front in North Africa.  He wrote also about sports.  Among his pseudonyms: R. Osher, Av-Yehuda, and A. Yakir.  He was last living in New York.

Source: Tog-morgn zhurnal (New York) (July 7, 1959).