MORTKHE LIBHABER

MORTKHE LIBHABER (b. July 17, 1917)

            He was born in Markushov (Markuszów), Lublin district, Poland.  He studied in religious primary school, high school, and the Tachkemoni seminary in Warsaw.  He published poems and stories in the Polish Jewish Opinia (Opinion).  During the war years (from 1939), he was in Russia, and after the war in Germany, initially in the Förenwald camp and later in Munich.  He worked on the editorial board of Undzer veg (Our way) and also edited (1947-1948) Ibergang (Transition), organ of the Federation of Polish Jews in the American Zone (published in Munich at first in Latinized script, later in Yiddish).  He contributed poetry and articles to Di tsienistishe shtime (The Zionist voice) and Shriftn (Writings)—in Munich.  In book form he published: Kazania (Sermons), short stories in Polish; Zamdn (Sands), short stories (Warsaw: Kazak, 1938); Trit in shotn (Step in a shadow), poetry (Munich, 1949), 72 pp.  He also wrote under the name “Elihav.”  He was on the administration of the Jewish writers’ association of survivors in Munich.  From 1951 he was living in the United States.  He was a rabbi and a Hebrew teacher in St. Louis, Missouri.

Sources: Dr. F. Fridman, in Tsukunft (New York) (February 1949); Shmerke katsherginski ondenk-bukh (Shmerke Katsherginski remembrance volume) (Buenos Aires, 1955), p. 429; Y. Gar, in Fun noentn over (New York) 3 (1957), pp. 152, 168, 173, 175; Biblyografye fun yidishe bikher vegn khurbn un gvure (Bibliography of Yiddish books concerning the Holocaust and heroism) (New York, 1962), see index.

Benyomen Elis