Rokhl Brokhes

Rokhl Brokhes (Yiddish: רחל בּרכות; September 23, 1880 – 1942 or 1945) was a Yiddish-language writer from Minsk (today in Belarus). She was the author of stories, plays, and children's stories.

Biography Rokhl Brokhes was born in Minsk, in the Belarusian region of the Russian Empire, into a poor family. Her father, Volf Brokhes, was a maskil (follower of the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment), and taught her Hebrew, enabling her to read both the Bible and modern Hebrew works, such as the novels of Abraham Mapu. Her father died when she was nine years old, and not long afterward she went to work as a seamstress; later she taught needlework at the Jewish Vocational School for Girls in Minsk. During this later period she also wrote many children's stories.

Her works, which, besides many short stories and novellas, also included several dramas, had a realistic bent, with lyrical tendencies and a finely observed psychological dimension; she depicted Jewish family life, especially women and children, and Jewish working-class life. The socialist Yiddish writers Avrom Reyzen and Abraham Liessin (the editor of Di Zukunft) were both admirers of her work, and were among her close acquaintances.

In 1941, the first volume of Brokhes's collected works – a planned eight volumes, including over 200 stories – was being prepared for publication at the State Publishing House of Byelorussia at the time of the Nazi invasion of the region, and the book never appeared.

Brokhes died in the Minsk ghetto.

Selected works In Yiddish A zamlung dertseylungen. Vilna: Farlag fun B. Kletskin, 1922. Collection of seven stories: "Unter-barg", "A bletl", "Di shekhina", "In der un in der gas", "Di zogerin", "In tshad", and "Dem kvure shameses vayb". In pyonerishn lager. Minsk, 1936. Gelke. Moscow, 1937. Stories. Odlerl un shoymele, a vunder-maysele. Moscow: Emes, 1939. Shpinen. Minsk: Byelorussian State Publ., 1940.

In English translation "The Zogerin" [short story], translated by Shirley Kumove. In: Frieda Forman et al. (Eds.), Found Treasures: Stories by Yiddish Women Writers. Toronto: Second Story Press, 1994. . p. 85-90.

In French translation "Faubourg" [short story], translated by Cécile Neeser Hever. Paris: Éditions Bibliothèque Medem, 2023. .