Wednesday 2 September 2015

ARYE (LEON) GLEZER

ARYE (LEON) GLEZER (b. May 15, 1895)
            He was born in Vilna, Lithuania, into a well-to-do family.  He received a traditional Jewish education.  He graduated from a Russian high school and studied law at Odessa University and music at the local state conservatory.  He was an officer for a number of years in the Russian army, and during the Kerensky period he assumed the position of a judge in Odessa.  He took part in the fight against Petliura and other anti-Semites in Ukraine.  From 1921 to 1937 he lived in Israel, where he was among the founders of the Kadima agricultural settlement, the active fighters in the Hagana during the Arab pogrom in 192, and he was seriously wounded at that time.  From 1947 he was living in the United States.  He began writing in Russian and debuted in Novyi Golos (New voice) in Vilna.  He later placed pieces in the Russian-, German-, and English-language press.  In America, he switched to Yiddish.  He published articles, impressions, travelogues, and memoirs which depicted both the general and the Jewish life in Russia during the Revolution, in Israel, and in other countries—in Tog (Day) and Nyu-yorker vokhnblat (New York weekly newspaper) in New York, Di tsayt (The times) in London, and Keneder odler (Canadian eagle) in Montreal, in which he also published serially his “Lebn-bashraybung fun a revolutsyoner” (Life description of a revolutionary), which was subsequently published as a book: Fun moskve biz yerusholaim: a lebn-bashraybung fun a revolutsyoner (From Moscow to Jerusalem, a life description of a revolutionary) (New York, 1938), 208 pp., translated from the German by Yitskhok Zinger, with prefaces by A. Harkavy, Max Brod, and Dr. Moses Gaster.  He was living in New York.

Sources: M. Edelboym, in Di tsayt (London) (June 22, 1936); Liliput, in Forverts (New York) (July 8, 1938); V. Edlin, in Der veg (New York) (July 15, 1938); Sh. Tenenboym, in Der yidisher kuryer (Chicago) (July 17, 1938); D. Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah lealutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the founders and builders of Israel), vol. 5 (Tel Aviv, 1952), p. 2285.

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