Leksikon fun der Nayer Yidisher Literatur

לעקסיקאָן פֿון דער נײַער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור

A prose author, literary critic, and translator, she was born in Minsk into the home of an artisan. She graduated from the Minsk Pedagogical Institute and was a stipended research student at the Byelorussian Academy of Sciences. She worked as a teacher in schools and in the workers’ division of the Minsk Pedagogical Institute. She moved to Moscow in 1934 and worked in the Yiddish division of the Moscow Pedagogical Institute.

During WWII she lived in Tambov and wrote for the local newspaper Tambovskaia Pravda (Tambov Truth), and later she was a journalist in Alma-Ata (Kazakhstan).

She began publishing in 1931 with literary criticism in Shtern (Star) in Minsk. She wrote stories and literary critical essays in: Sovetish (Soviet) (1941); Folks-Shtime (Voice of the People) (1947); Heymland (Homeland) (1947-1948), also on its editorial board; and Sovetish Heymland (Soviet Homeland). Her work also appeared in: Af Naye vegn (On New Roads) (New York: Yidisher Kultur Farband, 1948); and Dertseylungen fun Yidishe Sovetishe Shrayber (Stories by Soviet Yiddish Writers) (Moscow: Sovetski Pisatel, 1969).

Her interests coalesced around the creative works of Sholem-Aleichem and Yitskhok-Leybush Perets. She contributed to the preparation for publication of the collected works (Gezamlte Verk) of Mendele Moykher-Sforim, which appeared in four volumes (1935-1940), the selected works (Oysgeveylte Verk) of Sholem-Aleichem, which appeared in sixteen volumes (1935-1941), and Perets’s Oysgeveylte Verk in Tsvey Bender (Selected Works in Two Volumes) (Moscow: Emes, 1941).

She edited or co-edited, adapted, or wrote introductory remarks for:

Birebidzhan (Birobidzhan), anthology (Moscow, 1936);

Yankev Dinezon, A sHteyn in Veg (A Stumbling Block in the Path) (Moscow: Emes, 1938);

Mendele Moykher-Sforim, Gezamlte Verk, vol. 4, Fishke der Krumer (Fishke the Lame) (Moscow: Emes, 1935-1940);

Sholem-Aleichem, Oysgeveylte Verk, vol. 6, Motl Peysi dem Khazns (Motl the Son of Peysi the Cantor), and vol. 10, Mayses far Yidishe Kinder (Stories for Jewish Children) (Moscow: Emes, 1935-1938);

Sholem-Aleichem, Noveln un Monologn (Novellas and Monologues) (Moscow: Emes, 1940);

Y. L. Perets, In Keler-Shtub (In a Basement Apartment) (Moscow: State Publishers, 1959).

Her books include:

Yitskhok-Leybush Perets, 1851-1915 (Yitskhok-Leybush Perets, 1851-1915) (Moscow: Emes, 1941), 55 pp.;

Yidishe Froyen, Fartseykhenungen (Jewish Women, Notes) (Moscow: Emes, 1943), 63 pp.;

Shrayber un Verk (Writers and Works) (Warsaw-Moscow: Yidish Bukh, 1968), 309 pp.;

Es Shpint Zikh a Fodem, Dertseylungen (A Thread Is Spun, Stories) (Moscow: Sovetski Pisatel, 1975), 326 pp.;

Aza Min Tog, Roman, Dertseylungen, Etyudn (Such a Day, a Novel, Stories, Studies) (Moscow: Sovetski Pisatel, 1982), 325 pp.

She authored literary portraits for a host of Soviet Yiddish writers, including: Shmuel Halkin, Zelik Akselrod, Leyb Kvitko, Zalmen Vendrov, Ezra Finenberg, Itsik Kipnis, and Dovid Bergelson.

“Rivke Rubin’s prose,” commented Dovid Sfard, “draws our attention with concision and sensibility in the depiction of her characters, with her…innovative picturesqueness, [and] with psychological truth.”

“Rivke Rubin is a writer of fiction and criticism,” noted Hersh Remenik, “and in both genres it is characteristic of her that one can cite a musculature of style, culture of language, and I would even say a culture of creation. Rivke Rubin’s language and style is genteelly simple, which is comprised of both clarity and expression, both transparency and thought.”

“Her genre,” wrote Lili Berger, “as critic is the literary portrait of the author, the study of a special work…in relation to the literary tradition, the literary trends.”

She died in Moscow.