#pk-born-1:

Solomon Shmulewitz-Small (1868-1943) Yiddish poet, playwright,
composer, and folk singer born in Pinsk, Byelorussia. Came to the U.S.
in 1891. (RG 214)

#pk-born-2:

Samuel Seidel Burman, a lawyer and former assistant United States
attorney in Manhattan, died of emphysema Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 87 years old. Mr. Burman, who was born in Pinsk, in
what is now the Soviet Union, and came to the United States in 1905,
received his law degree from New York Law School in 1923. He entered
private practice and later served as law secretary to Justice Julius
Miller of State Supreme Court.

Mr. Burman was also an assistant United States attorney from 1951 to
1953 under Irving H. Saypol. He had an active law practice in
Manhattan until 1987, when he moved to Los Angeles.

He is survived by a daughter, Jane Powell of Los Angeles; two
brothers, Dr. Daniel, of Detroit, and Dr. Louis, of North Miami Beach;
a sister, Dorothy B. Strong of Manhattan, and a grandson

#pk-born-3:

Rachel Abramowitz
Etched in Stone: SculpTUres by
October 26, 2007 – December 2007

A compelling variety of sculptures that includes Biblical figures,
Shtetl personalities and historical characters will make the visitor
feel like they are meeting the people of Jewish history. Born in
Pinsk, Rachel Abramowitz was exiled to Russia during the war years,
and then lived in Berlin¹s DP Camp, where she fell in love and married
U.S. Army Chaplain Mayer Abramowitz. In 1951 the couple settled on
Miami Beach, where Rachel continued her artwork. Some of her works are
on display in the Israeli Museum at Kibbutz Lochamey Hagetaot and at
FIU¹s Law School.

#pk-born-4:

A prominent Israeli politician Moshe Kol (Kolodny) was born in Pinsk
in 1911. Since 1935 he was a member of the Histadrut executive
committee, in 1946-1966 a member of the World Zionist Organisation
Executive Committee. In the memorable May, 1948 Moshe Kol as a member
of the National government signed the Declaration of independence of
Israel. In the same year he became one of the founders of the
Progressive Party of Israel, from which he was a member of Knesset. In
1966-1969 he was a minister of tourism and development, and in
1969-1977 - a minister of tourism. Moshe Kol's life ended in 1989 in
Jerusalem.

#pk-born-5:

Ẓvi Hirsch ha-Kohen Scherschewski, Russian Hebrew writer; born at
Pinsk in 1840

#pk-born-6:

MUNDLAK, YAIR

Born 1927, Pinsk (Poland); Ph.D. 1957, Univ. of California, Berkeley.; Lect.
1960; Assoc. Prof. 1965; Prof. 1970; Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, 1972-74;
Emeritus 1991.

#pk-born-7:

Ryszard Kapuscinski died in Warsaw, on January 23, 2007.

Selected Bibliography:
• Busz po polsku. Historie przygodne / The Bush, Polish Style, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1962.
• Czarne gwiazdy / Black Stars, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1963.
• Kirghiz schodzi z konia / The Kirghiz Dismounts, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1968.
• Gdyby cala Afryka... / If All Africa..., Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1968.
• Dlaczego zginal Karl von Spreti / Why Karl von Spreti Died, Warsaw: Ksiazka i Wiedza, 1970.
• Chrystus z karabinem na ramieniu / Christ with a Rifle on His Shoulder, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1975.
• Jeszcze dzien zycia / One More Day of Life, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1976.
• Cesarz / The Emperor, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1978.
• Wojna Futbolowa / The Soccer War, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1978.
• Szachinszach / Shah of Shahs, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1982.
• Zaproszenie do Gruzji / An Invitation to Georgia (Published together with W. Kubicki's Slodkie morze Bajkal) Warsaw: MAW, 1983.
• Notes / The Notebook (poems), Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1986.
• Lapidarium, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1990.
• Imperium, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1993.
• Lapidarium II, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1995.
• Lapidarium III, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1997.
• Heban / Ebony, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1999.
• Lapidarium IV, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 2000.
• Z Afryki / Out of Africa, Bielsko-Biala: Buffi, 2000 (more...).
• Lapidarium V, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 2002 (more...).
• AUTOPORTRET REPORTERA / A REPORTER'S SELF-PORTRAIT, Krakow: SIW "Znak", 2003 (more...).
• PODROZE Z HERODOTEM / TRAVELS WITH HERODOTUS Krakow: SIW "Znak", 2004 (more...).
• Ten Inny / That other (collection of lectures), Krakow: Znak, 2006.
• Prawa natury (poetry), Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2006
Selected translations:
• English:
THE EMPEROR: THE DOWNFALL OF AN AUTOCRAT (CESARZ), San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983. SHAH OF SHAHS (SZACHINSZACH), San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985. ANOTHER DAY OF LIFE (JESZCZE JEDEN DZIEN ZYCIA), New York: Penguin, 1988. THE SOCCER WAR (WOJNA FUTBOLOWA), New York: Knopf, 1991. IMPERIUM, New York: Knopf, 1994.
• French:
IMPERIUM, Paris: Plon, 1994.
• German:
Der Fussballkrieg: Berichte aus der Dritten Welt (Wojna futbolowa), Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1990. Imperium. Sowjetische StreifzÜge, Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn, 1993. KÖnig der KÖnige. Eine Parabel der Macht (CESARZ), Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1986. Lapidarium, Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn, 1992. Schah-in-Schah (Szachinszach), Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1986. Wieder ein Tag Leben. Innenansichten eines BÜrgerkriegs (Jeszcze jeden dzien zycia), Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn. Schah-in-Schah. Eine Reportage Über die Mechanismen der Macht, der Revolution und des Fundamentalismus, Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn, 1997.
• Finnish:
Imperiumi, Helsinki: Like, 1993.
• Spanish:
El Sha o la desmesura del poder, Barcelona: Anagrama, 1987. El Emperador (Cesarz), Barcelona: Anagrama, 1989. La guerra del fútbol (Wojna futbolowa), Barcelona: Anagrama, 1992.
• Catalan:
El homes de l'emperador (Cesarz), Barcelona: Escena, 1990.

#pk-born-8:

Leib Morgentoi, pen-name of Chanan Leib Sapozhnik (1905-1979). Yiddish poet. He was born in Pinsk. and started publishing in 1927.  He escaped deep into the Soviet Union in 1941 when Germany attacked Russia. He lived in Smarkand during the war. Morgentoi returned to Poland in 1947. and settled in Israel in 1957.
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Tree of Stars
"My grandpa had a field with one wonderful tree, / there's none like it in the whole world, says my grandpa. / Fruit does not grow on it, because anyway / the fruit ends up rotting and no one needs them / / This is the Star Tree which lights up the eyes / There they grow and rise like on the sky…"
Later I found out that the man who wrote this song, Leib Morgentoi, made aliyah to Israel and he lives in Holon in a forgotten immigrant home.

later translated to Hebrew by Yoram Tharlev and sung by myself
-- Chava Alberstein

#pk-born-9:

Jacob Bregman (1888-?) was born in Pinsk, and immigrated to the U. S. in 1912.
-- ---------------------

Shmuel Bobrowicz 

Mayor (Past)
Bay Harbor Islands
 Born in Pinsk, Russia, into an orthodox Jewish family, Shmuel Bobrowicz, lost his mother at age three and became an orphan at 10, when his father died in World War I. He and his younger brother somehow survived the German occupation of his city and the hostilities between the Poles and the Bolsheviks that followed. His American uncle offered to sponsor his entry into the United States, arranging for steerage passage from Antwerp via Warsaw. To get there, the 13-year-old boy jumped a freight train in the dark, only to be thrown off at daybreak by a railroad official.

He finally made his way to Antwerp and, after a three-week voyage, arrived in New York. He was greeted by a relieved uncle and a hostile aunt. "She was very unhappy to have me there," he says. It took two years, but he managed to change his aunt's attitude toward him. He's proud that, after his aunt and uncle divorced, he took care of her until the day she died. "It's important to repay people for what they did for you," he says.

His uncle gave his young nephew a new name, Shepard Broad, and enrolled him in school. Because he spoke only Yiddish, he was assigned to a third grade class. "I hated it. I couldn't wait to get out of there," he says. "The kids made fun of me." Within a year, however, he was able to attend high school; and seven years after he spoke his first word of English, he earned a law degree from New York Law School. "When you've got no money, and nothing except a rather decent head on your shoulders, the thing to do is to use your head," he says.

Broad practiced law in New York for several years, then became enchanted with Florida while vacationing there. In 1947, he acquired 250 acres of swamp land between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, and founded the town of Bay Harbor Islands, a development of two islands that supports 5,000 residents. He served as mayor of Bay Harbor Islands for 26 years, until stepping down at age 70.

#pk-born-10:

Solomon Shmulewitz-Small (1868-1943) Yiddish poet, playwright, composer, and folk singer born in Pinsk. Came to the U.S. in 1891

Slavomir Rawicz
A modest man's struggle against the tides of war and oppression
• John B Adams
• The Guardian,
• Wednesday May 5 2004
• Article history
In the early 1950s, Slavomir "Slav" Rawicz, who has died aged 88, met a journalist, Ronald Downing. So taken was Downing with the epic story of Slav's escape from a Siberian labour camp in 1941 that he persuaded him to write about his experiences.
In 1955, The Long Walk was published. It was the story of a good and gentle man caught up in the savageries that followed Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, when that country was partitioned between the Nazis and the Soviet Union.
Slav's account started in the notorious Lubyanka prison in Moscow, as he was sentenced to 25 years' hard labour for "spying", after the 12 months of interrogation that had followed his arrest on November 19 1939. Dispatched to Siberia, he and thousands of others were transported in open cattle trucks, in sub-zero temperatures, to the end of the line at Irkutsk, where, chained together, they were force-marched hundreds of miles to Camp 303 - which the survivors had to build from scratch.
In April 1941, with the aid of the camp commandant's wife, Slav and six others escaped in a blizzard. They then walked 4,000 miles south, living off the land, through the Gobi desert and over the Himalayas, until they reached India and were rescued by a Gurkha patrol. Sheer determination had overcome bitter cold, suffocating heat, thirst, starvation and injury. It took them a year. Three of the seven died on the way.
By the end of his ordeal, Slav weighed 5 stone. He never recovered his full health, but his humane will never betrayed it. After a period in hospital, the four dispersed, never to meet again.
Slav, the son of a landowner-cum-artist, was born near Pinsk, in western Poland (now Belarus). His mother, an accomplished musician, was Russian, and he grew up to speak the language fluently. As an adventurous boy, he roamed the glades and rivers of the Pripet marshes, fishing, sailing, making shelters and trapping his own food, all of which helped in his later, testing years.
Following private educa-tion, from 1932 to 1938 he studied architecture and surveying in Warsaw. In 1937, he joined the Polish reserve army, qualifying at the cav alry cadet officers' school the following year. In summer 1939, he married. The young couple had 48 hours together before Slav was mobilised as Germany invaded Poland. He never saw his wife again.
Poland's valiant defence ended after three weeks. Slav returned to Pinsk, where he was arrested by the advancing Soviet forces. He never saw his parents, siblings or home country again.
After India, in 1942 he was sent to Iraq, then to Palestine, where he taught at the Polish cadet school, helping at an orphanage in his spare time. Personally recommended by Lieutenant General Wladyslaw Anders, legendary commander of the Second Polish Corps, he came to Britain in 1944 to train as a pilot with the Polish air force.
After the war, he settled in the Nottingham area, where he worked as a school handicraft and woodwork instructor, as a cabinet maker and in store display. In the 1960s, he was employed by the Nottingham building and design centre.
After the centre closed, in the early 1970s he became my technician - I was a lecturer - on the architectural ceramics course at Trent Polytechnic (now Nottingham Trent University) school of art and design. Our friendship developed across the ensuing decades, but a heart attack forced him into early retirement in the mid-1970s.
Slav had met Marjorie Needham at a dance in 1944. They were married in 1946, as soon as a special dispensation was obtained for the uncertainty about his first wife's survival. Marjorie, a librarian, helped with The Long Walk, which, never out of print, has been published in more than 25 languages, including, since 1990, Russian and other eastern European tongues.
From the royalties, Slav and Marjorie bought a ruined but delightful historic house on a hilltop near Nottingham, which they pulled into shape over the years while raising five children. There was never any spare money, but they managed with their Catholic faith, ingenuity and love.
Retirement was not a concept Slav entertained. Besides keeping a large garden in order for almost half a century, each year he received hundreds of letters from people all over the world, inspired by his book, often school children. With Marjorie's help, he answered them all. He gave talks, emphasising his watchwords, the "precious heritage of freedom".
Marjorie died three months ago. Their two sons, three daughters, 11 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren survive him.
· Slavomir Rawicz, escaper and crusader for freedom, born September 1 1915; died April 5 2004
==========================
Hannah Dolinko Moorstein, passed away on October 12, 1999. Widow of  the late Yerachmiel Moorstein, she was born in Pinsk in 1907. She made aliyah with her husband in 1935. Her granddaughter, Dr. Ruth Lapid-Gortzak writes:
My grandmother was a very special person. When she came to Eretz Israel she didn't know Hebrew, although as a gymnasium alumna she was fluent in Russian, Polish, and German, besides her mameloshen.
We jokingly said she missed out on a great career in the Shin Bet - taking note of her incredible ability to ask people all the pertinent questions, and retaining the details for later encounters. But her true career was being a matriarch to our family. The children: Nitza (my mother), Avia, Yaacov,  & Dorit, and later her grand and great-grandchildren, became the center of her life. This was the only thing that truly mattered to her. To recount how good a deceased person was, is probably the easiest cliche. When I sum up the most important lesson I learned from her, it is the way material matters didn't really count. Both my grandparents lived modestly, more than one could imagine in these times, in which materialism has replaced just about every other value. In May  she learned she was ill, and decided that she has to live some more, because she was waiting to see her next great-grandchild, my Eran.
I hope to be a proud mother of a Jewish family, in her tradition.
 

#pk-born-11:

RATNOFF, NATHAN
President American Jewish Physicians Committee. He was born in Pinsk,
1875. He settled in New York in 1898. He is president of the Beth Israel
Hospital, New York.

#pk-born-12: