Literatureאפרים אוירבך

Efraim Auerbach

Efraim Auerbach was a Yiddish poet, writer, editor and translator from Bessarabia who worked in the United States and in the Land of Israel.

1892 to 1973Yiddish poetry for childrenService in the Zion Mule CorpsTranslating Russian literature into Yiddish

Born: 12 December 1892, Bălți
Died: 4 May 1973, Beilinson Hospital
Occupation: poet, Yiddish, journalist, translator

Efraim Auerbach was born in 1892 in Bălți

Efraim Auerbach was born in 1892 to a Jewish family in Bălți, Bessarabia, then part of the Russian Empire. His father was a poor ritual slaughterer close to Chabad Hasidim. He studied in religious schools and from age 15 began learning Russian and general subjects.

His first stories appeared in Russian when he was 17. In 1909 he published children's stories in Hebrew, and later wrote mainly in Yiddish. In 1913 he came to the Land of Israel and worked as a farm laborer in the Judea colonies.

During World War I he was deported to Egypt, where he joined the Zion Mule Corps and took part in the Gallipoli campaign. In 1915 he left for the United States due to illness and settled mainly in New York. There he worked as a teacher, editor, journalist and children's writer in Yiddish, and served as president of the Yiddish PEN in New York.

He translated Russian works into Yiddish, including texts by Kuprin and Alexander Blok, and edited a lexicon of modern Yiddish literature in 1969. He won the Fichman Prize for Literature. In 1970 he moved to Israel, settled in Tel Aviv, and died in 1973.