SHAYE-SHLOYME HURVITS-ZALKES

SHAYE-SHLOYME HURVITS-ZALKES (September 22, 1878-May 17, 1960)

            He was born in Ihumen (Igumen, Chervyen’), Minsk district, Byelorussia, into a well-to-do family.  He studied in a religious primary school, synagogue study hall, and with private tutors.  He moved to Warsaw in 1900.  He sat for the examinations and received a teacher’s diploma from the Warsaw Curatorium, and until WWI he worked as a teacher of Jewish history and geography in the Jewish community schools.  He was also manager of the evening courses for adults in the Jewish community of Warsaw.  In 1907 he was a member of the initiating group to found in Warsaw a school with Yiddish as the language of instruction, took part in the battle against the assimilationist management of the teachers’ union, and was one of the teachers who illegally taught Yiddish language and literature to groups of workers.  In 1912 he was a member of the pedagogical commission of the elementary school of “Ḥinukh yeladim” (Education of children), where under the leadership of Sh. Gilinski they secretly introduced Yiddish as the language of classroom instruction.  He also took part in the teachers’ conference of “Mefitse haskole” (Society for the promotion of enlightenment [among the Jews of Russia]) in Odessa and there came out publicly in favor of Yiddish and for the Jewish school.  At the end of 1914 he left Warsaw, lived in Minsk, Kiev, Kharkov, and Akhtirke (Okhtyrka), and everywhere developed intensive cultural and educational activities among Jewish war refugees.  He was the founder—in the group “OZE” (Obschestvo zdravookhraneniia evreev—Society for the Protection of the Health of the Jewish Population)—of children’s homes, day schools, and dormitories in which Yiddish was the language of use.  After the Russian Revolution of 1917, he lived in Petrograd and Saratov.  A Bundist from his youth, he was active in the Bund even after the Revolution, and in March 1919 he served as a delegate from the Volga region to the eleventh Bundist conference in Minsk.  When the Bolsheviks began to persecute their political opponents, Hurvits escaped to Vilna, worked as a teacher of Yiddish in the Dvoyre Kupershteyn School for girls there, managed the evening school named for Morris Winchevsky, was active in the social-democratic Bund in Vilna, and contributed to its press: Dos fraye vort (The free word), Unzer tsayt (Our time), and Unzer gedank (Our idea).  In 1923 he came to the United States, worked for a time as a teacher at Workmen’s Circle schools, and contributed pieces to Forverts (Forward) in New York.

            Hurvits began writing when still quite young.  He translated into Yiddish stories by the Russian writer Vsevolod Garshin, Fir teg afn shlakhtfeld in der milkhome (Four days on the battlefield of war [original: Chetyre dnia (Four days)]) and Der signal (The signal [original: Signal]) (Warsaw, 1906), each 20 pp., second edition (New York, 1926), and the work of H. Spencer, Shlof un khaloymes (Sleep and dreams) (Warsaw, 1906), 24 pp., from his Principle of Sociology.  Hurvits also compiled a full series of textbooks for Yiddish-language schools, including: (with M. Shpigelburd and Y. Klepfish) A zamlung arifmetishe oyfgaben, rekhnbukh fir yudishn hoyz, kheyder un shule (A collection of arithmetic problems, arithmetic book for the Jewish home and school) (Warsaw, 1913), 96 pp.; (with Y. Levin and Y. Lukovski) Unzer naye shul, a khrestomatye far kinder (Our new school, a reader for children) (Warsaw, 1914), 250 pp.; (with A. Bulkin) Di muter natur (Mother nature) (Vilna, 1922), 166 pp.; (with Y. Giligitsh) Geografishe khrestomatye (Geography reader), 2 parts (Warsaw, 1923), 293 pp.; (with B. Ostrovski) Idish far onfanger (Yiddish for beginners), 2 volumes, 96 pp. and 128 pp. (New York, 1926; many subsequent editions); Yidish, khrestomatye far dritn un fertn lernyor (Yiddish, a reader for the third and fourth school year) (New York, 1925 and many subsequent editions).  He was also the author of short biographical descriptions: Moyshe mendelson, 1729-1786 (Moses Mendelssohn, 1729-1786) (New York, 1926), 31 pp.; Dzhordano Bruno, 1548-1600 (Giordano Bruno, 1548-1600) (New York, 1926), 20 pp.; Zhan-leon zhores, 1859-1914 (Jean Jaurès, 1859-1914) (New York, 1926), 14 pp.; Dzhuzepe garibaldi (Giuseppe Garibaldi) (New York, 1926), 16 pp.—all published by the education department of the Workmen’s Circle.  He also published Di muter natur, di velt fun khayes un oyfes (Mother nature, the world of beasts and birds) (Warsaw, 1914), 36 pp.  In more recent years, he brought out Zikhroynes vegn der nayer yidisher shul (Memoirs of the modern Jewish school) (New York, 1950), 87 pp.; and A shtetl in vaysrusland (A town in Byelorussia) (New York, 1952), 106 pp., with an introduction by H. Leivick.  He lived until his death in New York.

Sources: Sh. Bastomski, Di naye shul (The new school), vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1923); Kh. Sh. Kazdan, Fun kheyder un shkoles biz tsisho (From religious and secular primary schools to Tsisho) (Mexico, 1956), see index; Sh. Gilinski, in Kultur un dertsiung (New York) (December 1957).

Khayim Leyb Fuks