MIKHL LEYBOVITSH

MIKHL LEYBOVITSH (b. December 20, 1906)

            He was born in Warsaw, Poland.  He graduated from a business school and studied at the Free Polish University.  In 1923 he moved to Argentina.  He returned in 1925, continued his education in business, and then received his doctoral degree in England.  In 1938 he ran an English-language course in Warsaw for emigrants with the Warsaw HIAS, and he also held a position at the Argentinian consulate-general in Warsaw, but he then returned to Argentina and there he remained.  Politically, he was active in the Hitaḥdut (the “union” of young Zionists [Tseire-tsiyon]).  He began publishing in 1925 in Lemberg’s Folk un land (People and land); and he wrote articles for Argentinian publications of the day: Unzer gedank (Our idea), Unzer tsayt (Our time), Di naye tsayt (The new times), Unzer veg (Our way), and Pagines juveniles (Youth pages), a publication for young people in Spanish.  He served on the editorial board (1941-1942) of the daily Morgentsaytung (Morning newspaper), and he placed work as well in the journal Davke (Necessarily) and edited and published (with Y. Horn and M. Koyfman) the monthly Nay lebn (New life) (thirty-four issues over the years 1944-1946).  He translated into Yiddish from W. Somerset-Maugham, Mazoles (Destiny [original: First Person Singular]), six stories (Buenos Aires, 1954), 330 pp.  He was last living in Buenos Aires.

Sources: Volf Bresler, Antologye fun der yidisher literatur in argentine (Anthology of Jewish literature in Argentina) (Buenos Aires, 1944), p. 936; A. A. Robak, in Ilustrirte literarishe bleter (Buenos Aires) (November-December 1954); Yankev Glatshteyn, in Ilustrirte literarishe bleter (May-June 1955).

Benyomen Elis