Eventov, Yakir
EVENTOV, YAKIR
EVENTOV, YAKIR (Drago Steiner ; 1901–1984), journalist and historian.
Born in Koprivnica, Yugoslavia, he lived and worked in Zagreb until his immigration to Palestine. A Zionist activist from his youth in the Ha-Po'el ha-Ẓa'ir branch in Yugoslavia, he edited the Zionist weekly Židov and an "Anthology of Hebrew Literature," to which he contributed his own translations.
Arriving in Palestine in 1934, he spent a year in kibbutz Merḥavyah; the next year he joined the staff of the Haifa Electric Corporation and worked there until his retirement. He devoted all his spare time to the study of Jewish history, producing with the assistance of C. *Rotem a volume entitled "History of the Jews in Yugoslavia" (1979), the first work in Hebrew on the subject.
With his wife, Ethel, he initiated in 1955, and directed from his home in Haifa, an archival collection of documents and materials on Jewish life in all parts of Yugoslavia. It was called the Museum and Historical Section of the Association of Immigrants from Yugoslavia. After the Eventovs' death, the collection was renamed in their honor the Eventov Archives, and in 1986 it was transferred to Jerusalem, where it became part of the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People.
[Zvi Loker (2nd ed.)]