EMIL ZOMERSHTEYN

EMIL ZOMERSHTEYN (July 6, 1883-May 25, 1957)

            He was born in the town of Khleshtshev, eastern Galicia.  He received a traditional Jewish education, later studying law at Lemberg University.  In 1906 he received his doctor of law degree, and in 1908 his doctor of philosophy.  He practiced as a lawyer in Lemberg from 1913.  During WWI he served as a lieutenant in the Austrian Army.  He was elected in 1922 as a deputy to the Polish Sejm on the list of the national Jewish bloc, and he was re-elected thereafter regularly until WWII erupted.  He often appeared in the Sejm to give speeches in defense of Jewish interests and Jewish honor.  He was also a favorite among the non-Jewish population of Poland for his implementing the tenant protection law, known as the “Zomershteyn Law.”  He was chairman of the Jewish Cooperative Bank for small businesses and craftsmen in Lemberg.  He was also vice-president of the Galician Zionist Organization.  He published articles on political, economic, and cultural issues in: Moment (Moment) and Nasz przegląd (Our review)—both in Warsaw; Lemberger togblat (Lemberg daily newspaper) and Chwila (Moment)—both in Lemberg; and in publications of the Jewish cooperative movement; among others.  With the outbreak of WWII in 1939, he left for Lemberg, was arrested there by the Soviets, and was deported deep into Russia.  He returned to Poland in 1945 and became minister of reconstruction in the first Polish government after the war.  He traveled to Moscow and persuaded the Soviet government to free over 100,000 Polish Jews from their sites of deportation and labor camps and to repatriate them to Poland.  He did much thereafter to facilitate repatriation as well as with Holocaust survivors in Poland.  He also served as co-editor of Dos naye lebn (The new life) (Warsaw-Lodz) in 1945.  In 1946 he traveled at the head of a delegation of Polish Jews to the United States and Canada, with the goal of organizing relief for the surviving Polish Jewish remnant.  In America, he became ill and remained with his daughter in the town of Florida, New York.  He died in Middletown, New York.

Sources: Dr. R. Feldshuh, Yidisher gezelshaftlekher leksikon (Jewish community handbook) (Warsaw, 1939), pp. 170, 174; Regniz (B. Zinger), in Keneder odler (Montreal) (March 22, 1945); Dr. Y. Tenenboym, Galitsye, mayn alte heym (Galicia, my old country) (Buenos Aires, 1952), p. 149; B. Y. Rozen, in Portretn (Portraits) (Buenos Aires, 1956), pp. 205-14; Kh. Zaydman, in Hadoar (New York), p. 32; Zaydman, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (May 29, 1957); M. Ginzburg, in Keneder odler (July 3, 1957); Avshalom, in Hadoar (Sivan 15 [= June 14], 1957); Who’s Who in World Jewry (New York, 1955).

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