YISROEL TABAKMAN

YISROEL TABAKMAN (October 1888-January 1, 1983)

            He was born in Shedlets (Siedlce), Poland.  He studied in religious elementary school, synagogue study chamber, and on his own in a small Hassidic house of prayer.  In 1904 he was active in the Bund, and from 1905 he was involved in the Labor Zionist movement.  During the Shedlets pogrom of 1906, he was arrested by the Tsarist authorities.  Until 1924 he lived in Warsaw and later in Paris and Brussels.  He survived WWII in the Belgian underground.  He did much to help the Jews in hiding inside Nazi-occupied France and Belgium.  From 1928, he was publishing articles in: Unzer vort (Our word) in Brussels; Arbeter-vort (Workers’ word) in Paris; Heymish (Familiar) in Tel Aviv; and elsewhere.  In Sefer yizkor lekehilat shedlets (Memory volume for the community of Shedlets), ed. A. V. Yasni (Buenos Aires, 1956), he published a work [in Yiddish] on Labor Zionism in Shedlets.  Among his books: Mayne iberlebungn, unter natsisher okupatsye in belgye (My experiences, under Nazi occupation in Belgium), with prefaces by Y. Zerubavel and Nakhmen Blumental (Tel Aviv, 1958), 240 pp.; In belgye af tsu morgns nokhn khurbn (In Belgium the morning after the Holocaust) (Tel Aviv: Ringelblum Institute, 1969), 117 pp.  He died in Netanya.

Sources: Reshumot (Tel Aviv), n.s. 3; Unzer vort (Brussels) (September 3, 1948); Yidishe tsaytung (Tel Aviv) 407; information from Yitskhok Kaspi.

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 275.]