Eli Shechtman

Yiddish writer Eli Shechtman was born in the village of Vaskovichi, in Ukrainian Poleyse. He received a traditional Jewish education and studied in the literary department of the Jewish Teachers’ Institute at Odessa University. His first novel Oyfn sheydveg (At the Crossroads), was published in 1930. He joined the Soviet Writers’ Union in 1934 and continued to publish fiction until World War II; he later served as a Red Army officer. In 1953, during the “Doctors’ Plot” and the persecution of Jewish intelligentsia, Shechtman was arrested on charges of espionage and Zionism. After Stalin’s death, he was rehabilitated and began writing his main work, the epic novel Erev, describing the long historical odyssey of a Jewish family. Shechtman immigrated to Israel in 1972.