KHAYIM YAVITSH

KHAYIM YAVITSH (b. May 17, 1906)

            He was born in Vilna.  He lost his father in WWI, and he studied with his grandfather at a religious primary school in Sventsyan (Svencionys), Vilna district, while also attending a German compulsory public school.  From 1918 he was studying at “help through work” in Vilna, and from 1923 in the Vilna Jewish teachers’ seminary.  He worked as a teacher in the Vilna Sholem-Aleykhem School.  He was active in the Jewish scout organization “Bin” (bee).  He wrote poems, five of which were included in the anthology Binishe lider (Bin poetry) (Vilna, 1932).  An articles of his on “workers’ dormitories” appeared in A yor arbet fun yidishn lerer-seminar in vilne (A year’s work from the Jewish teachers’ seminary in Vilna) (1927).  The manuscript of his pedagogical monograph, entitled “Vegn kindershn leyenen in der sholem aleykhem-shul” (On children’s reading in the Sholem-Aleykhem School) is held at YIVO in New York.  In 1935 he illegally crossed the border into Soviet Russia.  During the great mass arrests of 1937-1939, he disappeared without a trace.

Leyzer Ran