Wednesday 29 November 2017

MATISYOHU (MAX) MERMELSHTEYN

MATISYOHU (MAX) MERMELSHTEYN (b. January 15, 1925)
            He was born in Skala, eastern Galicia.  He attended religious elementary school, a Tarbut school, and later a Polish high school in Lemberg.  He was an active leader in the youth organization Gordonia, “Young Maccabee.”  During WWII he was confined in the Borshchiv ghetto and later hid out in the forest around Skala.  He lived in Lodz (1945-1946) and contributed to the local Gordonia publication in Polish, Słowo młodych (Voice of youth).  In 1947 he departed for Austria and contributed there to the Gordonia periodical Baderekh (On the road) in Linz and Renaissance (in German) in Vienna.  In 1948 he arrived in New York.  He studied English literature at Hunter College and attended courses in the Hertzliya teachers’ seminary.  He published reviews of Yiddish books in Hadoar (The mail) and journalistic articles in Der idisher kemfer (The Jewish fighter) in New York.  From 1956 he was an official in the New York bureau for the Labor Histadrut in the state of Israel, and he edited various Histadrut publications, primary for the “union campaigns.”  He compiled and edited a pamphlet, Berl katsenelson, tsu zayn fuftsenten yortsayt (Berl Katsenelson, on the fifteenth anniversary of his death) (New York: Latin America Department, Histadrut, 1959), 52 pp.  He was last living in Brooklyn, New York.
Benyomen Elis


No comments:

Post a Comment