STRIGLER, MORDECAI

STRIGLER, MORDECAI (Motl; 1918–1998). Yiddish and Hebrew writer and journalist. Born near Zamość, Poland, he attended a Musar yeshivah in that city and then studied in other yeshivot (e.g., Lutsk, and Kletsk under Rabbi aaron kotler ). In 1937 he settled in Warsaw and became a journalist, writer, and preacher in the Great Synagogue. Interned in 12 concentration camps, Strigler survived the Holocaust. In Buchenwald he worked in the Jewish cultural underground, which organized the education of 800 children. He edited the first periodical of Holocaust survivors (Tkhiyas ha-Meysim, May 4, 1945). He then settled in Paris (1945–52), where he was contributor to and editor of Unzer Vort. From 1953 he lived in New York, where he edited the Labor-Zionist Yidisher Kemfer (at first with Baruch Zukerman, later as sole editor until 1995, published in collaboration with jacob glatstein ). From 1987 until his death he edited the Yiddish Forverts. Strigler was one of the most learned and prolific Jewish writers of the second half of the 20th century. His works dealt with Jewish life in Poland before World War II and reported on and interpreted his experiences in the slave labor and death camps as well as the lives of Holocaust survivors in postwar Paris. His published books include Tsu Aykh Shvester un Brider Bafrayte ("To You Liberated Sisters and Brothers," 1945); In a Fremdn Dor: Lider un Poemen ("In an Alien Generation: Poems," 1947); Maydanek (1947); In di Fabrikn Fun Toyt ("In the Factories of Death," 1948); Di Ershte Libe fun Kopl Matsh: Roman ("The First Love of Kopl Matsh: A Novel," 1948); Verk Tse ("Factory 'C,'" 2 vols., 1950); Goyroles ("Destinies," 2 vols., 1952); Georemt Mitn Vint: Historisher Roman fun Yidishn Lebn in Poyln ("Arm in Arm With the Wind: A Historical Novel of Jewish Life in Poland," 1955); Inzlen Oyf der Erd: Noveln ("Islands on the Earth: Novellas," 1957); Shmuesn Mit der Tsayt ("Conversations With Time," 2 vols. 1959–61). Several of his Yiddish and Hebrew novels, as well as over a thousand short stories and essays, and thousands of articles in scores of Yiddish and Hebrew periodicals (under his name and more than 20 pseudonyms), have not yet been published in book form. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Glatstein, In Tokh Genumen (1947), 283–7; 2 (1960), 221–8; idem, Mit Mayne Fartogbikher (1963), 555–69; H. Leivick, Eseyen un Redes (1963), 287–91. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Y. Szeintuch, in: Chulyot, 9 (2005), 223–7. (Yechiel Szeintuch (2nd ed.)