Guide to the Papers of Leon Feinberg (1897-1969) 1906-1969 (bulk 1920-1960) RG 601

The materials in this collection are arranged topically and by format. The correspondence, Yiddish subject files and some of the written materials are arranged alphabetically according to the Yiddish alphabet. The Russian subject files are arranged according to the Russian alphabet. Personal names of correspondents have been transliterated, journal titles and organization names have been transliterated and translated, and the titles of speeches and writings have been transliterated and translated. Yiddish names have been transliterated according to YIVO standards except when the individual is known in English by another spelling. Additionally, if the name appeared in Latin letters anywhere within the folder, that spelling was used rather than a standard transliteration. The collection is organized in ten series, some of which have been further subdivided into subseries. The original inventory was completed in October 1974 by Marek Web. Additional processing completed in December 2011.

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of Yiddish journalist, poet, novelist, and translator Leon Feinberg. These materials include correspondence with Yiddish literary figures and with organizations, newspaper clippings about writers and about Leon Feinberg and his works, subject files, manuscripts of works by Feinberg and by other writers, and some of Feinberg’s personal documents. These materials relate to Feinberg’s long career with various Russian and Yiddish periodicals and literary organizations.

Yehudah Aryeh Leyb (Leon) Feinberg was born 6 February 1897 in Kodyma, Podolya Province, Russia (now Ukraine), the son of Rabbi Nathan Samuel Feinberg and Sheva Tomashpolsky Feinberg. He attended kheyder until he was 9 years old and then at age 10, the family moved to Odessa, where Feinberg entered the Iglitzky-Rapoport gymnasium and his father was the editor of the Odeser Folksblatt (Odessa People’s Journal). Feinberg’s father was later arrested and then forced to leave Odessa on account of an article in this publication, at which point he traveled to the United States to search for a job. Rabbi Feinberg later taught chemistry at Ohio State University and Hebrew educational practices and wrote several books.

Leon Feinberg had already started writing poetry in Russian by the age of 12 and he published his first volume of Russian poetry in 1914, having been strongly influenced by the Russian Symbolists. Feinberg completed his studies at the Iglitzky-Rapoport Gymnasium in Odessa in 1912 and then traveled to America for the first time, following his father. After returning to Russia with his father, Feinberg started attending Moscow University in 1915. He won first prize in the 1918 All-Russian Poetry Competition for his poem “The Soul of Russia.” He graduated from Moscow University in 1919 with a diploma in literature, languages and philosophy. He published his works in several Russian journals in Moscow, including Neva, Lietopis (Record), which was published by Maxim Gorky, and others, often under the pseudonym Leonid Grebniev. He also published several books of Russian poetry and was involved in the Imaginist Group of poet Sergei Yesenin.

Feinberg served three years as an officer in the Red Army during the Bolshevik Revolution, including spending some time as the adjutant for the important Soviet commissar Jan (Yakov) Gamarnik, who was H.N. Bialik’s brother-in-law. He was captured by the White forces of General Anton Ivanovich Denikin in the violent struggles in Southern Ukraine in autumn 1919 and only escaped to Turkey through the intervention of Bialik in 1920. Also in 1920, and also with Bialik’s help, Feinberg traveled to Palestine and was one of the founders of a new kibbutz, Kiryat Anavim, near Jerusalem. He traveled all over the world as a sailor, to Morocco, Tunis, Algiers, India, and various countries in Europe before immigrating to the United States in 1921.

He continued to write in Russian when he first arrived in the United States, publishing in Russian journals in New York and Chicago, including Novoye Russkoye Slovo (New Russian Word), where he worked as a literary editor. He later began writing in Yiddish and published his poems and other works, including translations into Yiddish of Russian and English literature and articles on public affairs, in many important Yiddish journals in the United States, Poland, Argentina, Israel, and several other countries. His first Yiddish poem was published in the Freie Arbeiter Stimme (Free Voice of Labor) in 1921. He continued to use the name Leonid Grebniev or just L. Grebniev, Leonid Amarant, Alter Eno, L. Gorin, L. Senders, F. Gorny, and other pseudonyms.

From 1926-1929 Feinberg worked as a co-editor and member of the writing staff at the Freiheit (Freedom). He quit over what he felt was the Freiheit’s anti-Jewish response to the Arab pogrom in Hebron, Palestine in 1929. He returned to the newspaper in 1932 but then quit again when he canceled his membership in the Communist Party in 1939 in connection with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. He wrote for the monthly Der Hamer (The Hammer), Di Feder (The Pen), Freie Arbeiter Stimme, Yiddishe Tageblatt (Yiddish Daily News), Morgn Zhurnal (Morning Journal), Amerikaner (The American), Freiheit, Morgn-Yidishe Kultur (Morning Yiddish Culture), Di Naye Prese (The New Press), Jewish Daily Forward, Zukunft (Future), Der Groyser Kundes (The Big Stick), Der Vokh (The Week), Undzer Veg (The Way), Yidisher Kultur (Jewish Culture), Vayter (Further), Yidisher Kemfer (Jewish Fighter), Literarishe Bleter (Literary Pages) in Warsaw, Di Prese (The Press) in Buenos Aires, Di Goldene Keyt (The Golden Chain) in Tel Aviv, and Epokhe (Epoch), which he and I.A. Weissman published and edited from 1943-1947. He was an editor for the leftist journals Funken (Sparks) and Signal from 1933-1934. He became a feature writer, and later city editor, for Der Tog (The Day) starting in 1941, where he spent many years editing the news columns and writing numerous articles speaking out against Communism. He was the president of the Yiddish P.E.N. Club in New York and the vice president of the I.L. Peretz Writers Union. He also worked for the Yiddish Arts Theater, 1923-1926 and the Artef Theater, 1932-1934.

Feinberg wrote 15 books of prose and poetry in Yiddish and four books in Russian as well as numerous unpublished writings. He published an anthology in Russian of the Yiddish poets in America, in which there are over 300 poems from more than 100 poets. He won the Leib Hoffer prize in Buenos Aires for his book Der Farmishpeter Dor (The Doomed Generation) and in 1966 he received the Liza and Willie Schorr Literary Stipend from the Jewish Culture Congress. English translations of his work are to be found in Joseph Leftwich's The Golden Peacock (1940), and J. B. Cooperman's America in Yiddish Poetry (1967).

Leon was married to Florence Weingarten on October 18, 1932. They had 5 children: Gerald, Babette, Rita, Harriet, and Norman. Leon Feinberg passed away January 22, 1969 in New York.

Authors, Yiddish
Glanz-Leyeles, Aaron, 1889-1966
Glatstein, Jacob, 1896-1971
Grade, Chaim, 1910-1982
Korn, Rachel, 1898-
Leivick, H., 1888-1962
Manger, Itzik, 1901-1969
Mann, Mendel, 1916-1975
Meitus, Eliahu, 1892-1977
Morgn-frayhayt
Newspaper publishing
New York (N.Y.)
Panitz, Joseph
Ravitch, Melech, 1893-1976
Roback, A. A. (Abraham Aaron), 1890-1965
Rosenblatt, Herschel
Russia
Sutzkever, Abraham, 1913-2010
Tog (New York, N.Y.: 1922)
Weinper, Zishe, 1892-1957
Yiddish newspapers
Yiddish P.E.N. Center (New York, N.Y.)
Yiddish periodicals
Yiddish Writers’ Union
YIVO Archives

Clippings - Newspaper clippings
Documents - Correspondence
Documents - Manuscripts
Photographs

Yiddish
Russian
English
Hebrew