DOVID TABATSHNIK

DOVID TABATSHNIK (b. August 12, 1909)

            He was born in Warsaw, Poland.  He graduated from a senior high school and spent two years studying in the Warsaw Polytechnicum.  In 1929 he made aliya to Israel and was living in Petaḥ Tikva.  From 1930 he was active in Labor Zionism.  He was a member of the secretariat of Aḥdut haavoda (Union of labor) of the Labor Zionists and a member of the Zionist Action Committee.  He joined the Hagana and was arrested several times by the British.  Over the years 1945-1947, he was active in Briḥa (“escape” [organized, illegal emigration from postwar Soviet zones into Allied-held terrain in Europe]) and in aid work on behalf of rescued Jews in Poland and in German camps.  In 1947 he became a member of the city council and in 1951 the mayor of Petaḥ Tikva.  From 1932 he was publishing articles (also using the pen names Dovid Fefer, Ben-Yoysef, and the like) in: Hapoel hatsair (The young worker), Davar (Word), Lemerḥav (Into the open), Nayvelt (new world), and Folksblat (People’s newspaper)—in Tel Aviv; Arbeter vort (Workers’ word) in Paris; Undzer veg (Our way) in New York; and Unzer vort (Our word) in Brussels; among others.  He was last living in Haifa.

Source: Who’s Who in World Jewry (New York, 1955), p. 765.

Khayim Leyb Fuks