Yosef Tunkel

[1] Born into the family of a poor teacher in Babruysk (in Belarus, then part of the Russian Empire), Tunkel was a sickly child whose drawing ability prompted charitable members of the community to send him to art school in Vilno.

His poetry was first published in Der yud (Warsaw) in 1901 and from then on his poems, satires, drama and children's stories appeared in Yiddish publications throughout Europe and North America.

[4] The outbreak of World War II found him in Belgium from which he escaped into France only to be arrested by the Vichy authorities.

A more detailed and accurate Russian version of "Дер Тункелер" biography is located at: ru:Тункель, Иосиф.

Publishes his first poems in Joseph Luria's Yiddish newspaper Der Yud (The Jew).

Eventually Iosef Tunkel becomes the editor of the weekly humor supplement called Der Krumer Shpigel (The Bent Mirror).

1914-1918 During World War I, Iosef Tunkel returns to Babruysk and from there to Kiev and Odessa where he publishes several short works.

Is feted by the Hebrew Writers Union and Khaim Nakhman Bialik, who declares himself as a great admirer of Der Tunkeler's works.

He subsequently writes his first travel narrative based on his experiences in the Holy Land.

Due to his lame leg, he is captured by the French police and sent to a detention center for foreign Jews in Strasbourg.

His last work of literature is an article for the Lithuanian Yizkor Book Lite "The Chapter of Vilna in my Life" which is published posthumously in 1951.

His physical health shattered by his experiences in the French camps, he spends the last several years of his life ill and nearly blind.

1949 On August 9, 1949 (14 Av, 5709) Iosef Tunkel dies and is interred in the New Mount Carmel cemetery in Ridgewood, Queens, New York.