YEHUDA EREZ

YEHUDA EREZ (May 1, 1900-1983)

He was earlier known by the name Yehuda Reznichenko, born in Novomirgorod (Novomyrhorod), Ukraine.  He studied in both the Sloboder and Lomzher yeshivas, which were evacuated during WWI—the former to Priluki (Pryluky) and the latter to Krementshug (Kremenchuk).  For general secular subjects, he had a private tutor.  In 1915 he joined Tseire tsiyon (Zionist youth).  In 1918 he graduated from the pedagogical course of study under the Jewish ministry in Kiev.  He was a teacher, 1919-1920, in a Jewish school in Yelisavetgrad (Elisavetgrad), and then mobilized into the Red Army.  In 1922 he organized a pioneer collective in the Jewish colony of the Yelisavetgrad region and transported a majority of the collective to Poland (nine out of the forty-four members died en route).  In 1923 he arrived in Palestine.  In 1939 he was a member of Tel-Yosef Kibbutz.  He published for the first time in 1920; from 1925 his work appeared in publications of Achdut ha-avoda (Labor unity) and Histadrut (Trade union organization) in Palestine.  He edited the journal Mechayenu (Our lives) [put out by Tel-Yosef].  Over the years 1929-1934, he was on assignment for the Histadrut in Czechoslovakia.  He led enlightenment work among the Carpatho-Russian Jews.  He edited there Yiddish and German publications.  In Yiddish he published the pamphlets: Vos ton? (What to do?), Di hakhshore (The training for agricultural emigrants to Palestine), and In veg (En route), among others.  From 1945 he served as editor for the publisher Ayanot (Fountains).  He published on the history of the Jewish labor movement in Tsarist Russia, and in Palestine a greater number of articles in publications of laborers in Palestine, as well as in Folk un land (People and land) (Israel) and Yidisher kemfer (Jewish fighter) (New York).  Among his books: Di drite alie (The third aliya) (Tel Aviv, 1947), 73 pp.; Teroristn, a gefar (Terrorists, a danger) (Tel Aviv, 1948), 46 pp.; In baginen (At dawn) (Tel Aviv, 1948), 188 pp.  He was living in Kibbutz Givat Chaim, Emek Chefer, Israel.