MORTKHE ZARETSKI

MORTKHE ZARETSKI (b. March 31, 1893)

            He was born in Pinsk, Byelorussia, the brother of Ayzik Zaretski.  He studied in a “cheder metukan” (improved religious elementary school), later graduating from a technical school in Vilna; he also studied at the institute of political economy and agriculture.  He was a councilman in the Jewish community of Kharkov, a teacher in the local institute for public education, and manager of the Jewish youth workhouse.  He wrote correspondence pieces, 1911-1912, for provincial Russian newspapers.  From 1919 he published short articles on pedagogy and public education in Yiddish and Russian journals.  He founded in Kharkov a pedagogical publishing house which brought out eight small, popular scientific booklets for children and youth.  In subsequent years he devoted himself solely to editorial work.  After 1948 his fate is known.  In book form: Vi azoy men makht tsurik (How one goes back) (Kharkov, 1919), 31 pp.; Di kleyninke khakhomim, vegn murashkes (The tiny wise ones, about ants), with V. Lunkevitsh (Kharkov, 1919), 39 pp.; Ayzn-velt (Iron world) (Moscow, 1924), 65 pp.; and a booklet in Russian on schools for working youth (Kharkov, 48 pp.).  He also published with Sh. Godiner a terminology for the locksmith’s trade in the collection Yidish (Yiddish).

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Kh. F., “Tsvishn bikher” (Among books), Tsukunft (Kharkov) 1 (1919), p. 46; bibliography from Kultur un bildung (Moscow) 1 (24) (1920), p. 39.

Aleksander Pomerants