Lev, Abraham

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LEV, ABRAHAM

LEV, ABRAHAM (1910–1970), Yiddish poet. Born in Piaski near Volkovysk, Belorussia, he settled with his family in Vilna in 1922, studied in the Volozhin and Ramayles yeshivot, immigrated in 1932 to Palestine, and joined kibbutz Givat ha-Sheloshah. His first poem was published by Melech *Ravitch in a Warsaw journal when he was 16. Thereafter his lyrics appeared in Yiddish periodicals in Poland, France, the U.S., and Israel. Many of his poems were translated into Hebrew and were included in school texts and anthologies. His mature lyrics appeared in the volumes Heym un Feld ("Home and Field," 1953), Beymer in Vint ("Trees in the Wind," 1960), and Bleter fun Kibuts ("Pages from a Kibbutz," 1971). Lev was a poet of the kibbutz landscape, who referred to himself as a farmer-poet, dreaming his visions in the shade of the trees which he himself planted.

bibliography:

lnyl, 5 (1963), 242–4; M. Ravitch, Mayn Leksikon (1958), 233–5.

[Israel Ch. Biletzky /

Jerold C. Frakes (2nd ed.)]