YOYSEF(-KHAYIM) HEFTMAN (July 16, 1888-January 17, 1955)
He was born in Brańsk,
Grodno district. His father was a ritual
slaughterer and religious judge in Brańsk.
He studied in religious elementary school. At age ten he gained fame as a child prodigy. At age twelve he became interested in the
Zionist movement in his town and published a correspondence piece on this for Hatsfira (The siren). To protect him from the Jewish Enlightenment
movement and heresy, his father sent him to stay with observant relatives in
Brisk (Brest) where he initially studied in the local Talmud-Torah, later at
the Green Synagogue with the renowned scholar and sage, R. Sholem-Menashe. In Brisk he became acquainted with Dr.
Ksaveri Shteynberg—a popular doctor, community leader, and Russian-language
writer—borrowed Russian and German books from his library to read, turned his
attention to secular subject matter, and studied foreign languages. He also became familiar at this time with
Yiddish literature, began writing in Yiddish, and translated several of Dr.
Shteynberg’s plays from Russian into Yiddish.
After his father’s death in 1905, he had to worry about making a living,
and he became a teacher in the Jewish community. That year he published his first poem (in
Hebrew) in Hashiloaḥ (The shiloah), and
thereafter published many poems in Hashiloaḥ,
edited then by H.-N. Bialik, the anthology Hatsair
(The youth) in Bialystok (1905), Hatekufa
(The epoch), and other Hebrew-language publications. In 1906 he returned to Brańsk. He was now widely known as a follower of the
Jewish Enlightenment, a writer, and a man knowledgeable of many languages. In 1909 he sat for the baccalaureate
examinations as an external student at the Radom state senior high school. In 1910 when Hatsfira was restarted under the editorship of Nokhum Sokolov and
Dovid Frishman, he became a regular contributor, and under the pen name “Yosippon,”
he wrote a daily feature, also published stories, poems, and political
articles, and served as the editor of foreign news and of the supplement Hatsfira leyeladim (The sirenfor
children). From late August 1912 until
the summer of 1913, he edited the Jewish family magazine Di yudishe vokh (The Jewish week), where under the pseudonyms “Yoysef”
and “R. Yuzfl” he wrote editorials and feature pieces, under the pseudonym “Ḥevroni”
he translated from Russian A. I. Kuprin’s Shulamis (Shulamit),
and under the pseudonym “Der zeyde” (Grandfather) he ran the children’s
supplement “Farn kleynem oylem” (For the young audience). In 1912 he became a contributor to the Warsaw
daily Moment (Moment), for which he
wrote feature pieces and publicist articles until the outbreak of WWI—initially
using the pen name “A mensh” (A man), later as “Emanuel”—and humorous poems (as
“E-l”) for the supplement, “Der krumer shpigl” (The crooked mirror). He became one of the editors of the newspaper
in 1915. During WWI he co-edited the
weekly Hatsfira and contributed to
the Zionist weekly Dos yudishe folk
(The Jewish people), in which (1917-1918) he published a cycle of poems on
biblical themes. He also placed pieces
in Lebn un visnshaft (Life and
science), Der shtral (The beam [of
light]), Ilustrirte velt (Illustrated
world), Tog-varhayt (Day-truth), and
in the Israeli serials, Haarets (The
land), Hator (The turtle-dove), and Hapoel hatsair (The young laborer) in
which he later published his famed poem for pioneers, “Anu nihye harishonim”
(We shall be the first). In 1917 he was
one of the founders and later also the chairman of the Warsaw Jewish union of writers
and journalists. With the rise of the
independent Polish republic, Heftman developed broad, widespread Zionist
activities; he was the founder of the pioneer movement in Poland, co-edited the
weekly Heḥaluts
(The pioneer) in Yiddish and Hebrew, founded a pioneer model-kibbutz in
Grochów, near Warsaw, served as a delegate in 1920 from Heḥaluts to the Zionist conference in London, and
from there traveled further on assignment to the founding of Histadrut (Israel’s
trade union organization) in Haifa and to the unification of “Young Laborer”
(Hapoel Hatsair) and Aḥdut
haavoda (Union of labor) in the Land of Israel.
He was also the Israel correspondent for Warsaw’s Moment and Hatsfira and
New York’s Tog (Day). In 1921 he became the first secretary general
of Vaad Haleumi (National Council [in Israel]), administered the mobilization
of the Jewish gendarmerie, and authored the manifesto of Vaad Haleumi after the
Jaffa pogrom. In late 1921 he returned
to Warsaw, continued writing for Moment,
as well as Radyo (Radio), founded
with Shiye Gotlib and Leon Levite, the Zionist group “Et livnot” (A time to
build), was a candidate for the Polish Sejm, and was elected councilman for the
Warsaw Jewish community. In 1925 he
became editor of the renewed Hebrew daily Hayom
(Today), and later was editor of the renewed Hatsfira until its demise in 1930.
Late in 1931 he became a co-editor of Moment.
In 1933 Heftman settled in Israel,
where in 1936 he became editor of the daily newspaper Haboker (This morning) in Tel Aviv, founder and chairman of the
Hebrew journalists’ association, director and editor of the “living newspaper” Iton haitonaim (Newspaper of
journalists), and one of the most important leaders of community and cultural
life in Israel. In book form: an
illustrated poem for children in Yiddish, Khurbn
yerusholaim (The destruction of Jerusalem) (Warsaw: Frenkel, 1918); on the
anniversary of Hatsfira he wrote
(under the pen name “Aḥikam”)
a one-act play entitled Hayoyvl (The
anniversary), staged in 1912 in the Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall. Following to the mandate of the secretary
general of the League of Nations in Geneva, he published a handbook entitled Agudat haamim (League of Nations). In Warsaw in 1923 a collection of his articles
and memoirs was published in Warsaw, entitled Lenaḥum sokolov (To Nokhum Sokolov) (Warsaw, 1923),
20 pp. He translated B. Kellerman’s Der nar (The fool) into Hebrew as Haevil (Warsaw, 1920). He also published A vort tsu di yidishe eltern (A word to Jewish parents) (Warsaw,
1936), 16 pp. He visited the United
States and South America in 1952. He
died in Tel Aviv. His volume Am veadam (Nation and man) was published
posthumously (Tel Aviv, 1956), 415 pp.
In August 1957 “Ḥavatselet
Street” in Tel Aviv was given the name “Yosef Heftman Street,” and in the
journalists’ home “Bet Sokolov” the sitting room was named for him.
Sources:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Dr.
R. Feldshuh, Yidisher gezelshaftlekher
leksikon (Jewish communal handbook), vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1939), pp. 861-68; D.
Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse
hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the pioneers and builders of the yishuv), vol. 2 (Tel Aviv, 1947), pp. 965-67; M. Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 2 (Montreal, 1947), vol. 3
(Montreal, 1958); Sefer hashana shel
haitonaim (Journalists’ annual) (Tel Aviv, 1949/1950), p. 256; M. Turkov, Di letste fun a groysn dor (The last of
a great generation) (Buenos Aires, 1954), pp. 104-11; Y. Mastboym, in Letste nayes (Tel Aviv) (May 14, 1954);
B. Kroy, “Dʺr e. karlebakh un A. Rembo” (Dr. E. Carlebach and A.
Rembo), in Sefer hashana
shel haitonaim (Tel Aviv, 1954/1955), pp. 11-22; M. Tsanin, in Letste nayes (January 19, 1955); Y.
Botoshanski, in Di prese (Buenos
Aires) (January 23, 1955); B. Larshi, in Forverts
(New York) (January 24, 1955); M. Ginzburg, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (January 24, 1955); Dr. H. Zaydman, in Tog morgn-zhurnal (New York) (January
25, 1955); P. Shteynvaks, in Keneder
odler (February 3, 1955); Shteynvaks, Siluetn
fun a dor (Silhouettes of a generation) (Buenos Aires, 1958), pp. 41-44; A.
Nirenberg, in Keneder odler (February
16, 1955); A. Rembo, in Tsukunft (New
York) (May-June 1955); Berl Kuczer, Geven amol varshe (As Warsaw once
was) (Paris, 1955), see index; A. Lis, in Di
prese (February 2, 1956); M. Mozes, in Fun
noentn over (New York) 2 (1956); Sefer
haishim (Biographical dictionary) (Tel Aviv, 1956), p. 182; A. Yisraeli, in
Hadoar (New York) (September-October 1958).
Zaynvl Diamant
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