Leyb Rokhman

Leyb Rokhman was born in 1918 in Mińsk Mazowiecki

Leyb Rokhman was born in 1918 in Mińsk Mazowiecki, near Warsaw. He lost his father as a young child. As a youth he left home to study at the court of the Rebbe of Porisov in Warsaw and Otwock.

He was ordained as a rabbi, but later left religious life and began writing for the Yiddish press. When World War II began he returned to his hometown. In 1942 he fled with his wife Esther and hid in a farmers' house.

After the war he spent several years in a Swiss sanatorium because of tuberculosis. His diary from his time in hiding appeared in Paris in 1949 and was later translated into Hebrew, English, French and Russian.

He moved to Israel in 1950. He worked for many years in the Yiddish section of Kol Israel radio and wrote for Yiddish papers, including as Israel correspondent of the New York Forverts. His later books have a partly surreal character.

His home was a meeting place for writers such as S. Y. Agnon and Gershom Scholem. Writer Aharon Appelfeld described him as a major influence. He died in 1978, and his children include poet Rivka Miriam and violinist Yehoshua Rokhman.