Shimshon (Samson) Dunsky, pedagogue, author, scholar and essayist has died in Montreal at the age of 82. Born in 1899 near Bialystok, he studied in yeshivas and came to Canada in 1922. In almost all his years in this country he taught in the Jewish Peoples School in Montreal and was the school’s vice principal between 1927 and 1969.
Dunsky taught Jewish history, grammar and the methodology of teaching. He was the author of articles, essays, poems and children’s stories in the “Kanader Adler” (Canadian Eagle) of Montreal and was a contributor to other Yiddish and also Hebrew publications in Canada and the United States.
He translated into Yiddish the Midrashim of five Scriptural books (the Megilloth): Lamentations (1956), Esther (1962), Ruth (1962), Ecclesiastes (1967), Midrash Rabba Koheleth and Song of Songs (Midrash Rabba Shir Hashirim) (1973) with his commentaries. He published a volume on Hebrew grammar (1951) and two volumes of children’s poetry in Yiddish “Mein Lider Bichele,” Vol. I and II.
Dunsky was awarded the I. J. Segal Literary Award and in 1960 the Manger Prize. He also received the H. M. Caiserman Literary Award from Canadian Jewish Congress.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
