Leyb Gorfinkel


Leyb Gorfinkel was an advocate, journalist, and politician. He was of Lithuanian and later of Israeli nationality.

Early life and career

Gorfinkel grew up in Kovno, which was then in the Russian Empire but which is currently in Lithuania. While he was attending Petrograd University, Gorfinel studied jurisprudence. For a time, he moved to Gomel, where he became a member of the Russian Tse'ire Tsiyon Central Committee. He moved back to Konvo at the end of 1918.
In Kovno, he participated in various Jewish and Zionist activities. In 1919, he helped organize the Zionist daily newspaper Di idishe shtime, which he himself edited between February 1920 and February 1922. Gorfinkel was also a member of the presidium and then as vice chair of the Jewish National Council of Lithuania during this time. In addition, he edited the bi-weekly newspaper Unzer ruf in 1925-1926 and the weekly newspaper Di tsayt in 1932. Gorfinkel was a member of the Lithuanian Seimas between 1923 and 1927, where he represented the Zionists-Socialists and Tse‘ire Tsiyon. He was also a member of the Kovno City Council from 1924 onward.

World War II and the Holocaust

He was an organizer of the Society to Aid Jewish Refugees from Poland in 1940; he was also arrested by the USSR in June of that same year. He was the vice chair of the Ältestenrat of the Kovno Ghetto between 1941 and 1944, which was when Nazi Germany was occupying Lithuania. Due to suspicion that he was engaging in "underground activity", Gorfinkel was arrested and tortured in April 1944. After the Kovno Ghetto was liquidated that same year, he was sent to Kaufering concentration camp, which was near Dachau. Fortunately, Gorfinkel managed to survive the war and the Holocaust.

Later life and death

Gorfinkel lived in Rome, Italy between 1945 and 1948. In Rome, he was the head of the Organization of Jewish Refugees in Italy. He immigrated to Israel in 1948. In Israel, he was a contributor to the newspaper Milḥamotenu and was one of the editors of the collection Yahadut Lita. A week before his death, Gorfinkel was the first person to be interviewed by director Claude Lanzmann for his film Shoah, which was only released in 1985. In this interview, Gorfinkel discussed his own experiences in the Kovno Ghetto during the Holocaust. Gorfinkel died in 1976 at the age of eighty and was buried at Har HaMenuchot.

Writing