He worked as a labourer at a lacework factory in Kalisz from the age of 17 until the outbreak of the First World War,[1] during which time he began composing poetry.

He narrowly escaped the destruction of Kalisz in August 1914, fleeing to Lodz and then Sompolno.

His first publication was a short story in the Yiddish daily Lodzsher Togblat in 1916.

[2] He lived for several years in Vlatslavek, Paris, Berlin, and Warsaw.

[2][3] He fled toward Vilna upon the Nazi occupation of Warsaw in September 1939, but ran into German troops engaged in a pogrom in Kalushin.