AXELRAD, AVRAM

AXELRAD, AVRAM (Adolf ; 1879–1963), Romanian poet and publicist, editor, teacher of literature in Jewish schools. Axelrad was born in Barlad, where he finished his schooling. In 1900 he edited the literary review Aurora in Barlad and then moved to Bucharest. The poems in his first collection, Spre rasarit ("Eastward," 1900), were inspired by Jewish emigration by foot (the "Fussgeyers") from Romania on the way to America (1900); while those of his second, Ladita cu necazuri ("Box of Troubles," 1919), bewailed Jewish homelessness. The latter collection was republished in 1945 under the title La raul Babilonului ("Near the River of Babylon") with new poems on the Holocaust of the Romanian Jews. Although his poems are not of great literary value, written in popular form they were disseminated among simple people. Axelrad was called the "poet of Jewish suffering." As a publicist he edited some popular science reviews, such as Revista ideilor ("Review of Ideas") and Oameni si idei ("People and Ideas"), under the pseudonym A.A. Luca. Axelrad also managed a small publishing house, Lumen (1908), publishing popular editions of translations of classical philosophical works. He also translated parts of the Book of Psalms and Ecclesiastes into Romanian.

bibliography:

A. Mirodan, Dictionar neconventional, 1 (1986), 81–4; A.B. Yoffe, Bisdot Zarim (1996), 158–69, 439.

[Lucian-Zeev Herscovici (2^nd ed.)]