Chaim Leib Fox

Chaim Leib Fuchs was born in 1894 in Łódź.[1] He played a significant role in the literary life of the city,[1] where he cofounded the Łódź writers’ group[2] and joined the avant-garde artistic group Yung-yidish.[3] His poems, essays and prose appeared in Insel, Lodzer veker, Literarishe Bleter, Folkstsaytung and Vilner tog.[4] His poetry was rich in religious and national themes.[1] Fox wrote about the experience of living in Łódź in many essays and a monograph called Lodzh shel Mayle (1972).[1] In the mid‑1920s he married writer Rikuda Potash; the couple had a daughter who was born in 1926.[5] He briefly associated with General Jewish Labour Bund, then joined the Labor Zionists.[1]

In 1936–1938 Fox lived in Palestine, where he joined Haganah.[1] He spent the years 1940–1946 in the Soviet Union, afterwards moving back to Łódź.[1] He then lived briefly in France,[4] where he cofounded Yiddish literary association and the community of Eastern European Jews.[2]

Fox immigrated to the U.S. in 1953,[4] where he settled in New York.[1] He published in New York-based Yiddish press: Zukunft, Forverts, Morgn zhurnal and Fraye Arbeter Shtime.[4] His works also appeared in the Canadian Yiddish newspaper Keneder Adler.[4] Additionally, Fox wrote over 3,000 articles for the Leksikon fun der Nayer Yidisher Literatur.[1]

In 1980 Fox published Hundert yor yidishe un hebreyishe literatur in Kanade – a compendium on the history of literature and culture of the Jewish diaspora in Canada.[6] The large comprehensive volume covered 429 Yiddish and Hebrew authors who published in Canada in 1870–1970.[6] According to Vivian Felsen, it was "the most ambitious attempt to preserve Yiddish culture in Canada."[6] The book was translated into French in 2005 by Pierre Anctil.[7]

Fox died in 1984.[1]