Itsik Kipnis

Born in Sloveshne, Ukraine, Itsik Kipnis was a writer of Yiddish literature for children and adults. He is best known for his popular prose work Khadoshim un teg (Months and Days), a first-person narrative of shtetl life in a period of violence and revolution. Moved by the Holocaust and the unique experience of Jews in the Soviet Union during World War II, Kipnis began to write in a vein considered too “nationalist” for Soviet authorities and was subsequently exiled to a labor camp until 1956. He is remembered today in large part for his children’s stories, many of which were translated into Russian during his lifetime.