YISROEL (YISRAEL, ISRAEL) COHEN

YISROEL (YISRAEL, ISRAEL) COHEN (May 2, 1905-1986)

            He was born in Lashkovits, Tarnopol district, eastern Galicia, to a father who served as rabbi and ritual slaughterer.  He studied in religious primary school and synagogue study hall, and later graduated from a teachers’ seminary in Lemberg.  From his youth, he was active in the Zionist and pioneer movement.  From 1925 he was living in Israel on collective farmsteads.  He was a cofounder of Kibbutz Hakevutsot.  He began writing in Yiddish with a correspondence piece in Lemberger togblat (Lemberg daily newspaper) in 1921, later contributing to: Frimorgn (Morning) in Riga, Folk un land (People and nation) in Lemberg, and the Hebrew-language anthologies Heatid (The future) in Warsaw and Itonenu (Our future) in Lemberg—he edited the last of these with Dov Shtok.  From 1925 he was writing only in Hebrew.  He contributed and edited Hapoel hatsair (Young laborer) in Tel Aviv.  He also place works in: Davar (Word), Hatekufa (The epoch), Kneset (Gathering), Gilyonot (Tablets), and Moznaim (Scales), as well as in an entire series of anthologies and periodicals in the state of Israel and elsewhere.  He was the author of a large number of books in Hebrew (essays, monographs, stories of life on collective farms, and translations).  His story Sansina was also published in a Yiddish translation (Frankfurt, 1948), 70 pp.  He was the editor of a number of important periodicals and books, among them: Sefer butshatsh (Buczacz volume) (Tel Aviv, 1956), 302 pp.  He published as well under such pen names as: Alshekh, Y. Ben-Yitsḥak, Y. B. Mayan, Kore, and Magid.  He was last living in Tel Aviv.

Sources: Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the pioneers and builders of the yishuv), vol. 4 (Tel Aviv, 1950), pp. 1777-78; Sefer hashana shel haitonaim (The annual of newspapers) (Tel Aviv, 1947/1948), p. 250.