Moyshe Khashchevatskii was born in 1897 in the village of Buky, 15 kilometers east of the town of Zhashkov (south of Kiev) to the family of a Jewish teacher. Little Moyshe began studying at the talmud-torah (traditional communal religious school for poor children) where his father taught. In 1916, Khashchevatskii graduated from a commercial school in Uman and then studied in universities, in Ekaterinburg and then in Petrograd. In 1918, he returned to Ukraine and in 1921 settled in Kiev. In 1918 his first poem was published in the Kiev Yiddish newspaper Di naye tsayt. In 1922, his first collection of poems Dorsht (Thirst) appeared in Kiev.
Khashchevatskii was a renowned Soviet Yiddish poet. He published several books of poems, both for the adult readers and for children. He translated poetry from Russian, German, Ukrainian, and English into Yiddish. He also wrote works of literary criticism and published Jewish folksongs. In the 1930s he wrote three plays, including one on the life of Sholem Aleichem. More than twenty books by Khashchevatskii were published during his lifetime.
In 1943, when he was evacuated to Samarkand in Central Asia, Khashchevatskii volunteered to join the Red Army. The 46-years old writer served as an infantry rifleman. On October 8, 1943, he fell in battle near the village of Pupshino, north-east Belorussia. His last book of poems, Fun haynt un amol (From today and the past) was issued in Moscow shortly before his death.
