Yaacov Dumblianski — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Ya'acov Dumblianski (1876, Eišiškės, Vilna District, Russia [Lithuania] – Fall 1941, Kovno Ghetto, under Nazi occupation) was a Lithuanian Jewish Hebrew teacher. He taught in the Hebrew Gymnasium (high school) in Kovno and in the teachers’ seminar of the Hebrew education system known as “Tarbut” in the city. He wrote educational textbooks and anthologies, and published children’s stories, feuilletons and articles on the topics of language and education.

Biography

Dumblianski was born in 1876 in the town of Eišiškės in the Vilna District (Russian Lithuania), the son of Chava Beyla and Gershon. He studied in the Slobodka Yeshiva (a prominent Yeshiva of the Mussar Movement located in Slobodka near Kovno), where he received rabbinical ordination. He did teachers’ training in “Hebrew Pedagogical Courses” (Seminar for the training of Hebrew teachers) established by the Society for the Spread of Enlightenment among the Jews of Russia in Grodno. He was married to Rivka née Zelikovski from Ozery in the Grodno District and they had seven children. The family lived in the town of Ostrina in the District for a few years. Dumblianski taught out of town, and his wife was a housewife and a small food trader. The family eventually moved to Grodno, the main city in the District. Dumblianski taught in local schools until the end of World War I. He also published feuilletons under the pseudonym “R. Yedidya” and was one of the regular contributors to the magazine “Yiddishe Kunst” (Yiddish Art) in Grodno.

The family moved to Kovno in 1920 (which was now the de facto capital of the first Lithuanian republic), and Dumblianski joined the faculty at the Real Hebrew Gymnasium, where he taught Hebrew for twenty years, until it closed in 1940. At the same time he taught at the teachers’ seminar attached to “Tarbut” – the Hebrew education system. According to his colleague, Mordechai Elyashiv, Dumblianski was not a Zionist, but strongly aligned himself with the Hebrew culture and the language, and preserved the Ashkenazi pronunciation.

In Kovno he continued to write feuilletons and articles on the subjects of language and education, as well as stories for children. Dumblianski also wrote Hebrew textbooks: a beginners’ book for the study of Hebrew grammar called “First Steps” published in two volumes (1935-1936), and feuilletons for the first graders called “Shachar” (Dawn) in four volumes in cooperation with Yisrael Kaplan (1938). In 1936 a book for young adults came out called “An Upside-Down World: An original story about a boy from a good family who was transported to the upper world and saw the world upside-down; the heights at the bottom and the valleys on top” (all his books came out in Kovno and were published by Avraham Ptashek.)

Owing to the occupation of Lithuania and its annexation to the Soviet Union in the summer of 1940 during World War II, the education system underwent reorganization; the Real Hebrew Gymnasium was closed down, like the other Hebrew educational establishments in the town, and Dumblianski went to teach in the Yiddish Gymnasium that opened instead. According to his son Gershon, during this period Dumblianski worked on compiling a grammar book together with Yerachmiel Weingarten, a refugee from Nazi-occupied Warsaw.

When the Nazis occupied the city in the summer of 1941 Dumblianski, his wife and youngest son Gershon were deported to the Kovno ghetto.

According to a later testimony by Dr. Gutya Fisch who was a young girl at the time, Dumblianski was one of the victims of the massacre in the Lietūkis garage in Kovno on the 27^th June 1941 (known as the Kovno pogrom) when 60 Jews were murdered by Lithuanian nationalists. According to another version, he perished in the mass Aktion on 28^th October 1941 (the biggest mass execution of Lithuanian Jews that took place in a single day, when more than 9,000 people were murdered, 40% of whom were from the ghetto). His wife Rivka and their son Gershon also perished in the Holocaust.

His eldest daughter, Chaya Visovati (1902-1990), a member of the “He’Chalutz” (Pioneer) movement in Grodno, moved to Eretz Yisrael as a pioneer together with her group in the fall of 1921. In 1924 she married Avraham Visovati from Bialystok, who joined the group. They were both founders of Kibbutz Geva. In 1929 they left owing to differences of opinion, lived for a while in Jerusalem, later moving to the village of Kfar Saba, and in 1930 were among the founders of Moshav Herut near Tel Mond, where Chaya lived until she died. She had a daughter and a son. Dumblianski’s daughter Luba (born in 1905) came to live in Eretz Yisrael a few years after Chaya. She lived in Tel Aviv, married Chaim Shechman and together they immigrated to South Africa. She had three sons. His daughter Feigel (Tzipporah – born in 1909) immigrated to France where she lived all her life. She was married to Gera Corman and they had one son. His son Pesach Dumblianski (1914-1984) also came to Eretz Yisrael. He studied engineering in France and then returned to Israel. He was married to Raya, and they had no children.

Source: Wikipedia (Hebrew)