Born in 1918 in Gaisin, Ukraine, he was conscripted into the Red Army in W.W.2 and wounded in action. He was an actor in the State Jewish Theater in Moscow and also worked for the Jewish Antifascist Committee. He was persecuted by the authorities for his opposition to discrimination against Yiddish culture in Birobidjan. After being arrested in 1950, charged with bourgeois nationalism, Zionism and anti-Soviet activity, he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. He served his sentence in the Vorkuta labor camp. Despite being released in 1955, he didn’t succeed in getting to Israel till 1971. He was both a writer and a poet, in Yiddish, and was awarded poet Itzik Manger prize for his literary achievements. He died in 2003.
