Jozeferis Jehuda Leiba

Jehuda Leiba Jozeferis was born on 21 March 1920 into the family of the carpenter Šlioma Jozeferis and the dressmaker Dina Šuvalaitė in Jurbarkas. From his early years, Jehuda’s parents encouraged and cultivated the boy’s aptitude for learning. He started the Cheder at the age of five and his talent became obvious as early as that. After the Cheder, Jehuda went to a five-year Jewish primary school after which he was admitted to a Hebrew gymnasium. However, three years later it was closed and from 1935 he continued his education at the state gymnasium of Jurbarkas. He finished it in 1939. As a child, he dreamed of becoming a shoemaker, but while at school he took interest in sociology and philosophy, and in the higher forms of the gymnasium became attracted by the ideas of Freud and Adler. Eventually, Jehuda chose physics and in 1938 became a student in the Physics Department of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas. He said he had chosen physics as a subject that ‘addresses interesting problems’. Then he was transferred to Vilnius University and Jehuda moved from his parents’ house on Gaisrinės Street 11 in Jurbarkas to the so-called ‘student house’ [dormitory] on Tauro Street 4 in Vilnius where he studied physics, chemistry, and mathematics, and also took a course in military training. Just like at primary school and high school, Jehuda excelled in all subjects. Very likely it was because he realised quite early that it was very important to enjoy what one was doing – in his own words, ‘It’s better to be a good shoemaker than a bad doctor’. Unfortunately, his excellent achievements at the university did not count when he was expelled from the Physics Department of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of Vilnius University on 19 September 1941, on the basis of the Order of 17 September 1941 of the Higher Education Department of the Board of Education, which was subordinate to the Nazis and enforced their policies. Jehuda Leiba Jozeferis was killed during the Holocaust.

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