MENDL TEMPEL

MENDL TEMPEL (b. September 12, 1907)

            He was born in Ger, near Warsaw, Poland, into a working-class household.  He studied in religious primary school, yeshiva, and later graduated from a Tarbut school in Warsaw.  He went on to become a laborer.  As a youth he joined the revolutionary movement, for a time lived illegally, and then took off for Russia.  He began writing with revolutionary poetry in the illegal publications of the Jewish leftist writers group in Warsaw, and from 1950 he switched over to prose.  He published stories in Folks-shtime (Voice of the people) and Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish writings)—in Warsaw; Naye prese (New press) in Paris; Frayhayt (Freedom) in New York; and elsewhere.  His books include: Di sheydim-ozyere un andere dertseylungen (The spirits of the lake and other stories) which is filled with the breath and aroma of the Polish Jewish landscape (Warsaw, 1961), 96 pp.; fuller version of same: (Warsaw: Yidish bukh, 1962), 170 pp.  He was last living in Warsaw.

Sources: Folks-shtime (Warsaw) (February 16, 1957); Yidishe shriftn (Warsaw) (February 1961).

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 284.]