YERAKHMIEL LAZARSON

YERAKHMIEL LAZARSON (August 28, 1893-September 23, 1964)

            The brother of the writer Moyshe Ben-Eliezer, he was born in Shtshutshin (Szczuczyn), Vilna region, Lithuania.  Until age sixteen he studied in religious primary school and yeshivas, and later he became an external student.  He was active in the Jewish Polish Socialist Party (PPS [Polska Partia Socjalistyczna]) in Poland.  In late 1914 he moved to the United States, worked for a time in a sweatshop, and then graduated from a high school as well as from the Jewish teachers’ seminar at the Workmen’s Circle in New York.  For two years he studied humanities at a state college in Ohio.  Until 1922 he was active in the Jewish anarchist movement in New York.  Afterward, he lived in the South and was a cofounder and teacher at Workmen’s Circle schools in Atlanta, Georgia and Dallas, Texas.  From 1931 he was back in New York and teaching at Workmen’s Circle middle school.  From 1922 he published stories, travel impressions, children’s stories, and articles in: Fraye arbeter-shtime (Free voice of labor), Frayhayt (Freedom), Shul-byuletin (School bulletin), Tsukunft (Future), Forverts (Forward), Tog (Day), Kinder tsaytung (Children’s newspaper), and Kinder-zhurnal (Children’s magazine), among others.  He co-edited: Dorem-shtral (Southern beam [of light]) (Atlanta, 1926), 64 pp.; and 35 yor arbeter-ring lerer-farband (Thirty-five years of the teacher’s association at Workmen’s Circle) (New York, 1961).  Among the pen names he used: Y. Ben-Eliezer, Y. Glembotski, and Y. Fayers.  He died in New York.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen archive (YIVO, New York); Avrom Reyzen, in Tog (New York) (May 24, 1926); Sh. Yanovski, in Fraye arbeter-shtime (New York) (February 24, 1928); Yoysef Kahan, Di yidish-anarkhistishe bavegung in amerike (The Jewish anarchist movement in America) (Philadelphia, 1945), p. 430; S. Dingol, in Tog (February 25, 1961).

Khayim Leyb Fuks