Stencl , Abraham Nahum , 1897-1983 , Yiddish poet

Abraham Nahum Stencl (Avrom-Nokhem Shtentsl): born in Tsheladzh, in south-western Poland, 1897; arrived in Berlin, 1921; a leading Yiddish literary figure in Germany, he wrote expressionist poetry and associated with other literary figures including Else Lasker-Schüler (Schueler) and Thomas Mann; he was a pioneer of the modernist form in Yiddish poetry, but his themes and imagery drew on Jewish tradition; fled to Britain in the mid-1930s; following his arrival his best-known works were on Whitechapel, where he settled, and which he admired as the last Yiddish 'shtetl' (place); edited Loshn un Lebn (Language and Life), a Yiddish literary journal, for over 40 years; chaired the literarishe shábes-nokhmîtiks (literary Sunday afternoons) meetings; lived in Greatorex Road, off Whitechapel High Street; died, 1983. An annual lecture at the University of Oxford was founded in his name.