FROYM-DOV LIFSHITS (LIPSHITS)

FROYM-DOV LIFSHITS (LIPSHITS) (June 3, 1868-February 1925)

            He was born in Pinsk, into a prominent family.  He received a religious education, later acquiring a secular education on his own.  He debuted in print in 1890 with a poem “Harokhel haivri” (The Jewish peddler), which appeared in the collection Kneset hagedola (The great assembly).  In 1897 Hamelits (The advocate) published his stories: “Bashefel hamadrega” (At the bottom of the scale) and “Meḥayil el ḥayil” (From strength to strength).  In 1893 Ben-Avigdor brought out his story “Nekudat hakesef” (The point of money).  That very year, there appeared in Vilna Lifshits’s translation of Max Bodenheimer’s German pamphlet concerning the Jewish Colonial Trust (bank) in London.  Hi lullaby, “Shir haeresh” (Song of the cradle), published in Luaḥ aḥiasef (1893), was sung in public and was very popular.  His Taares hamishpokhe (Marital fidelity) (Riga, 1935/1936), 24 pp., was translated from other languages into Hebrew.  He edited and published in 1900 Pinsker shtot-luekh (Pinsk city calendar), with articles in Yiddish and Hebrew.  He was an important Zionist leader in Pinsk.  During WWI he lived in Russia, and on his way back to Pinsk (after the armistice) he died unexpectedly in Danzig.

Sources: Ts. H. Maslyanski, in Morgn-zhurnal (New York) (June 9, 1932); Toyznt yor pinsk (1000 years of Pinsk) (New York, 1941), see index.

Yankev Kahan