LEYZER HIRSHAUGE (ELIESOR HIRSCHAUGE, HERSZAUGE)

LEYZER HIRSHAUGE (ELIESOR HIRSCHAUGE, HERSZAUGE) (June 3, 1911-May 8, 1954)

            He was born in Warsaw, Poland, into a poor, Hassidic family.  He received a traditional Jewish education.  In his youth he worked in a print shop.  He lived until WWII in Warsaw and was active among Jewish anarchists.  When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, he escaped to Russia, where he worked in hard physical labor, and he also worked for a time as a coal miner in the Donbass region.  He returned to Poland in 1946 and moved from there to Israel where he was active with YIVO, “Yad Vashem,” and chiefly with Dr. Magnes’s group Iḥud (Unity).  He contributed to an array of anarchist serials in Yiddish, Hebrew, Polish, German, English, and French.  He was a regular contributor to: Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor) in New York; Der frayer gedank (Free thought [“Pensée libre”]) in Paris; and editor of the anarchist monthly in Hebrew, Deot (Opinions), in Tel Aviv (1952).  Among his books: Shpanye afn sheyd-veg (Spain at the crossroads) (Warsaw, 1936), 16 pp.; (under the pen name Luiz Haze) Vilyam godvin, hundert yor nokh zayn toyt (William Godwin, one hundred years after his death) (Warsaw, 1936), 16 pp.; Troym un farvirklekhung, zikhroynes fartseykhenungen un bamerkungen vegn anarkhistisher bavegung in poyln (Dream and reality, memoir notations and remarks on the anarchist movement in Poland) (Tel Aviv, 1953), 102 pp.; a volume in Hebrew on Marx and Bakunin (Tel Aviv, 1952), 102 pp.  Using the name “Ben-Amitay,” he translated into Yiddish André Gide’s book, Tsurik fun ratnfarband (Back from the Soviet Union [original: Retour de l’U. R. S. S.]) (Warsaw, 1937), 88 pp.  He also published under the pen name “Gural.”  He died in Tel Aviv.

Sources: Mortkhe Halevi, in Marmarosher bleter (Sighetu) 10 (1932); Fraye arbeter shtime (New York) (May 21, 1954); Y. Shpyevak, in Fraye arbeter shtime (June 4, 1954); Y, Hukhhauzer-Armuni, in Fraye arbeter shtime (June 18, 1954); M. Orlik, in Fraye arbeter shtime (August 13, 1954); Sh. Hamburg, in Fraye arbeter shtime (September 10, 1954); A. Zukhi, in Fraye arbeter shtime (May 6, 1955); Shmuel B., in Afn shvel (New York) 100-101 (1955); H. Lutski, in Fraye arbeter shtime (September 9, 1955).

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 219.]