KALMEN-TSVI
MARMOR (September 28, 1876[1]-July 2, 1956)
He was born in Meyshagole
(Maisiagala), Vilna district, Lithuania.
His father, Mortkhe Marmor, a scholar and follower of the Jewish
Enlightenment, was an agricultural worker by inheritance from his parents, held
a lease on land in his landlord’s domain, later turned to business, and opened
a soup kitchen in Vilna, which was a gathering point for revolutionaries. His mother came from a rabbinical
family. Also having a share in his
upbringing was his grandmother, Dvoyre Zayfert-Sapirshteyn, a women’s
hairdresser, a pharmacist, and a midwife, and a great lover of Yiddish
literature. Until age ten he studied the
Pentateuch, Tanakh, and writing with the town’s school teachers and
tutors. Later, in Vilna, he attended Katsenelboygn’s school and read Enlightenment
and philosophical works in Strashun’s Library.
He grew close, 1893-1894, to illegal revolutionary circles, and together
with other students from these circles, prepared for examinations into middle
school. In 1894 he became a socialist,
cast aside his studies, mastered the trade of turning, joined the secret
socialist organization, founded and led the turners’ trade union, and became
part of the “labor opposition” led by Avrom Reztshik (Gordon). In 1897 he underwent a period of religious
searching, studying day and night in a synagogue study chamber. The following year he resumed his
studies. In 1899 he was studying
literature, art, philosophy, and history at the University of Berne (Switzerland),
and three years later he was at Freiburg University, where he studied natural
science, philosophy, Hebrew, Tanakh, Assyriology, and the like. He visited virtually all of the cultural
centers in Europe and the monuments and works of art in Italy and the “Orient”
(Egypt, Greece, Syria, Palestine, Turkey, and elsewhere). In Berne he became a Zionist and served as a
delegate to the Zionist congresses in 1901, 1903, 1905, and 1907. Together with Chaim Weitzman, Dr. M. Gaster,
and others, he led the struggle against the Uganda proposal in England. He was one of the founders of the first Labor
Zionist organizations in London. Later,
in 1907, he—together with Ben-Zvi, Ber Borokhov, Nir-Rafalkes, Kamplanski, and
others—founded the World Union of Labor Zionism. In 1906 he arrived in the United States,
where he continued his activities in the Labor Zionist movement and served as the
first editor of Der idisher kempfer (The
Jewish fighter) in Philadelphia. He
visited the land of Israel in 1907, traversed the entire country on foot, and
was a close friend of Ben-Zvi, Raḥel
Yanait [Ben-Zvi], the comrades in “Hashomer Hatsair” (The young guard), and
other pioneers in the Jewish settlement.
He wrote correspondence pieces from there for Der idisher kempfer. He left
the Labor Zionists in 1914 and became a member of the American Socialist
Party. In 1920 he joined the illegal
Communist Party, for which he had to quit his job for Chicago’s Forverts (Forward). Marmor then settled in New York. He served as editor of the illegal Komunist (Communist) and was a member of
the editorial board of the weeklies Emes
(Truth) and Naye velt-emes (New world
truth), official organ of the Jewish section of the legal Workers’ Party which
in April 1922 changed to the daily Frayhayt
(Freedom) in New York. He was active the
entire time he was in New York as a cultural and school leader. Marmor began his literary activities in 1901
with translations of English fictional works, later contributing journalistic,
scholarly, and critical articles in great numbers to Yiddish newspapers in
England and the United States, among them the leftwing socialist daily
newspaper Di velt (The world) in
Chicago (1917-1918). In 1902 he was
already editing Koysl-maarovi
(Western Wall), the biweekly organ of the Zionist socialist association,
“Maarovi.” In 1905 he edited Idishe frayhayt (Jewish freedom), the
official organ of the Labor Zionists in England (among the contributors was Y.
Kh. Brener, a close friend of Marmor’s).
In the New York Frayhayt, Marmor
wrote for the most part on topics of history, literature, and art, and directed
the bibliographic-critical department “Tsvishn bikher un zhurnaln” (Among books
and journals), and he published hundreds of biographies under the title
“Vegvayzers fun der mentshheyt” (Guides for humanity). From 1926 he was co-editor of the monthly
journal Der hamer (The hammer) in New
York, in which he published longer monographic works on: Arn Liberman, Morris
Winchevsky, and Dovid Edelshtadt, among others, which later appeared in book
form. In 1930 he became cultural
director of the International Labor Order and editor of its organ, Der funk (The spark), as well as
secretary of its schools. At the same
time, he was a teacher in the leftist Jewish Workers’ University, also giving
lectures on the history of theater and drama in the leftist Artef theater. On the whole, throughout his life he did
pedagogical work, gave thousands of speeches, and read papers on the origins of
Jewish holidays and the history of religion.
He was a teacher of Jewish history at the teachers’ seminary of
Workmen’s Circle and of general history at the Sholem-Aleykhem Folk Institute,
and he helped in founding the people’s schools (until 1913—in Hebrew and later
in Yiddish), was a member of the national school committee of Workmen’s Circle,
a delegate to the conference of the Workmen’s Circle schools, chairman of the
Moses Hess Club for Jewish intellectuals in Chicago (1912-1915), and he was
vice-president the Y. L. Perets Writers’ Association in New York, as well as a
member of the central committee of IKOR (Yidishe
kolonizatsye organizatsye in rusland [Jewish colonization organization in
Russia]) and other
organizations. At the same time, he was
writing books, introductions to many works of other authors, and in the main
collecting and adapting a colossal amount of material for a history of the
Jewish labor movement and of the Yiddish press and literature in America. Marmor edited the edition of Morris
Winchevsky’s collected works in ten volumes—the first volume was Marmor’s
monograph on the “grandfather” of Jewish revolutionary labor literature. In 1933 the first volume appeared of his “History of class conflict from antiquity
to the present.” That same year, he
traveled to the Soviet Union at the invitation of the scientific research
institute for Jewish culture in Kiev and lived there for about three
years. Thanks to him they published
there an academic edition of Edelshadt’s collected writings in three
volumes—the third volume was not published, due to its discontinuation at the
institute; through a bizarre series of circumstances, though, the manuscript
ended up at YIVO in New York. The first
volume is a monograph by Marmor on Edelshadt.
In Kiev, thanks to him again, there was published a volume of plays by
Morris Winchevsky—of a projected academic edition of six volumes. (His wife, Sore Marmor, died in Kiev in 1934;
she had assisted him greatly in his scholarly work.) In 1936, after returning from the Soviet
Union, he became director of the Workers’ University. Later there was published in New York his
work on “the beginning of Yiddish literature in America,” concerning Arn
Liberman, Edelshadt, Yoysef Bovshover, and Yankev Gordin, and posthumously two
volumes of memoirs, entitled Mayn
lebns-geshikhte (My life history), which was published earlier in
installments in Frayhayt.
Marmor’s
path in life was filled with meandering and searching. He was a Zionist, a Labor Zionist, a
socialist, and a Communist. He was
well-versed in Yiddish literature of the previous century and in Hebrew
literature—from the Tanakh until modern times.
He was also knowledgeable of Jewish, Arab, and Greek philosophy. As Shmuel Niger put it, he was “one of the
most industrious and productive collectors and researchers of literary
historical material and documents.”
“Kalmen Marmor is a studious researcher,” wrote A. R. Malachi, “of the
history of older Yiddish literature and the press in America. He also knows the history of the socialist
and revolutionary movements among Jews….
We are also indebted to him for complete editions of the works of
Winchevsky and Edelshtadt, which he assembled and edited with great effort and
love, adding his own instructive introductions and annotations. As a researcher in the history of older
Yiddish literature and the press in America, K. Marmor may by rights be
considered among a small number of pioneers who laid the foundations in the
field which now occupies an honorable place in Jewish scholarship.” In the early 1940s, Marmor presented YIVO
with his library of over 5,000 books, among them many rarities. Over subsequent years, he gradually
transferred to YIVO his immense archive as well, which was rich in source
materials for the history of the Jewish labor movement (especially that of the
Labor Zionists), the history of Yiddish literary and cultural movements, the
history of social movements among Jews in America, and more. His letters alone, encompassing a period of
over a half century, numbered in his archive over 30,000—Yedies fun yivo (News from YIVO) 62 (September 1956). Marmor also donated a large number of
materials to the Kiev institute. He was
among the most devoted, loyal friends of the labor archive (Arkhion
Haavoda) in the state of Israel, to which for many years he regularly sent rare
works of great historical value, and he also shipped to the Israeli archive
numerous materials that were left with the passing of Arn Liberman and Morris
Winchevsky, including letters and manuscripts, as well as newspaper clippings
from his own archive. Among his letters
written in Hebrew to Y. Zerubavel, director of Arkhion Haavoda, Marmor wrote
that he planned to visit Israel “not as a tourist, but as a former resident”
returning home and wishing to see his “old home.” In a letter of July 1954, he wrote: “I hope
to remain healthy, to be cured of all illnesses, to live to my eightieth
birthday (Simchat Torah, 1956), and return to being active on behalf of my
Jewish people and their great cultural treasures.” In the obituaries following Marmor’s death,
Zerubavel wrote in the organ of the archive: “The departed made numerous errors
and even sinned at various times in his life, but deep in his heart he always
remained devoted to his people and the state [of Israel]. He extolled and respected his former friends
who remained loyal to the ideology that he shared in his youth and who devoted
their lives and their activities to the realization of this very vision.” (Asufot [Collection], 1956)
In book form, he published: a
translation of Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis
(From the depths) and his letters from prison in Reading, with an assessment of
the author by Bal Makhshoves, Fun der
tifenish, oyftsaykhnungen in brif fun der tfise in reding (From the depths,
sketched out in letters from prison in Reading) (London: Progres, 1909), 144
pp.; Tsien oder tsienizm? (Zion or
Zionism?), a pamphlet (Glasgow, 1916); De
profundis, fun der tifenish, geshribn in tfise un keytn (De
Profundis, from the depths, written in prison in chains) (New York, 1926), 80 +
231 pp.,, with a preface, “Oskar vayld un zayn tragedye” (Oscar Wilde and his
tragedy); Moris vintshevski, zayn lebn,
virkn un shafn (Morris Winchevsky, his life, impact, and works),
introductory volume to Winchevsky’s Gezamlte
verk (Collected works) in ten volumes, edited by Kalmen Marmor (New York:
Frayhayt, 1927), 411 pp.; Der englisher
imperyalizm in indye (English imperialism in India) (Lodz: Pro-kult, 1930),
29 pp.; Revolutsyonerer deklamator, zamlung fun lider, poemes, dertseylungen,
eynakters, tsum farleyenen, shipln un zingen bay arbeter-farveylung
(Revolutionary declamation, collection of songs, poems, stories, [and] one-act
plays to read aloud, enact, and sing for workers’ entertainment) (New York,
1933), 329 pp.; Klasnkamfn in altertum
(Class conflict in antiquity) (New York, 1933), 432 pp.; Moris ventshevski (Morris Winchevsky), vol. 5 of Geklibene verk (Selected works) in six
volumes—plays, with a literary historical introduction by M. Erik (Minsk:
Byelorussian Academy of Sciences, 1935), 24 + 248 pp.; Dovid edelshtadt, geklibene verk in dray bender (Dovid Edelshtadt,
selected writings in three volumes) (Moscow: Emes, 1935), vol. 1 (biography
written by Marmor), 264 pp., vol. 2, 339 pp., vol. 3, in manuscript in YIVO
(New York); Dovid edelshtat (Dovid
Edelshadt) (New York: Cooperative People’s Publisher, 1942), 40 pp.; Der onhoyb fun der yidisher literatur in
amerike, 1870-1890 (The start of Yiddish literature in America, 1870-1890)
(New York: Writers’ Section of IKUF, 1944), 136 pp.; Dovid edelshtadt (Dovid Edelshtadt) (New York: IKUF, 1950), 410
pp.; Arn libermans brif (The letters
of Arn Liberman), with an introduction and explanation by Marmor (New York:
YIVO, 1951), 252 pp.; Yoysef bovshover
(Yoysef Bovshover) (New York: Kalmen Marmor Jubilee Committee, 1952), 80 pp.; Yankev gordin (Yankev Gordin) (New York:
IKUF, 1953), 252 pp.; Mayn lebns-geshikhte
(My life history) (New York: IKUF, 1959), vol. 1, 401 pp., vol. 2, 411 pp.
Sources:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 2, and
the preface to vol. 4; Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish
theater), vol. 2 (New York, 1934), with a detailed bibliography; Zilbertsvayg, Di velt fun yankev gordin (The world of
Yankev Gordin) (Tel Aviv, 1964), see index; M. Olgin, in Yidishe kultur (New York) (June 1952); M. Osherovitsh, Di geshikhte fun forverts, 1897-1947
(The history of the Forward,
1897-1947) (New York, 1950s), p. 257; Y. Botoshanski, in Di prese (Buenos Aires) (May 27, 1947); M. Bakal, “Ven kalmen
marmor hot gelebt in shikago” (When Kalmen Marmor lived in Chicago), Morgn-frayhayt (New York) (December 16,
1951); Bakal, “Dray brif fun kalmen marmor” (Three letters from Kalmen Marmor),
Morgn-frayhayt (February 21, 1954);
Y. B. Beylin, in Yidishe kultur (New
York) (May 1942; November 1946); Beylin, in Zamlungen
(New York) (April-June 1954); B. Ts. Goldberg, in Der tog (New York) (November 13, 1932; December 30, 1934);
Goldberg, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New
York) (July 1956); Goldberg, on an important letter from Marmor, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (November 21, 1954);
M. Hurvits, in Yivo-bleter (New York)
36 (1952), pp. 275-82; Z. Vaynper, in Yidishe
kultur (August-September 1956), p. 51; F. Berman (Max Weinreich), in Forverts (New York) (July 1956); R.
Zaltsman, in Morgn-frayhayt (April 7,
1932), concerning the attack on Marmor during Winchevsky’s funeral—see Morgn-frayhayt (March 21, 1932) and
Marmor’s reply to the Winchevsky family in “Zikhroynes vegn zeydn” (Memoirs of
grandfather), in Morgn-frayhayt
(April 12, 1932); Y. Zerubavel, in Asufot
(Tel Aviv) (1956), pp. 180-81; Dr. L. Zhitnitski, in Di prese (July 1956); “A naye groyse kolektsye in yivo-biblyotek in
arkhiv fun kalmen marmor” (A new, large collection in the YIVO library in the
Kalmen Marmor archive), Yedies fun yivo
(New York) 44 (March 1952); Yidishe
kultur (March 1947), special issue for Marmor’s seventieth birthday, with contributions
from Kalmen Marmor, N. Mayzil, B. Ts. Goldberg, and others; Moyshe Kats, in Morgn-frayhayt (December 16, 1951); H.
Lang, in Forverts (June 24, 1953);
Khayim Liberman, in Forverts (June
29, 1960); Der Lebediker, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal
(September 19, 1953); Marmor, “Etlekhe verter vegn zikh” (Several things about
myself) (Morgn-frayhayt (June 28,
1952); Marmor, “Mayn mitarbetershaft in der morgn-frayhayt”
(My contributions to Morgn-frayhayt
(April 3, 1962), a reprinted piece by Marmor; a speech by Marmor in Paris, in Morgn-frayhayt (December 1, 1957); Ber
Mark, in Folksshtime (Warsaw) (July
21, 1956); Mark, in Yidishe kultur
(August-September 1957); Dr. A. Mukdoni, in Morgn-zhurnal
(New York) (April 13, 1947); Mukdoni, in Di
goldene keyt (Tel Aviv) 20 (1954); Mukdoni, in Di tsukunft (New York) (May-June 1955); N. Mayzil, Y. l. perets un zayn dor shrayber (Y. L.
Peretz and his generation of writers) (New York, 1951), see index; Mayzil, in Al hamishmar (Tel Aviv) (Elul 10 [= August
17], 1956); Mayzil, Noente
un vayte (Near and far) (New York: IKUF, 1957), pp. 145-57;
Mayzil, Tsurikblikn un perspektivn
(Retrospectives and perspectives) (Tel Aviv, 1962), see index; Y. Mestel, in Morgn-frayhayt (December 16, 1951);
Shmuel Niger, “Shomers mishpet af sholem-aleykhemen” (Shomer’s judgment on
Sholem-Aleykhem), Di tsukunft (January
1947); Niger, “A naye revizye fun shomers mishpet?” (A new revision of Shomer’s
judgment?), Idishe kemfer (New York)
(March 23, 1956); Y. Y. Sigal, in Keneder
odler (Montreal) (May 22, 1944); Meylekh Epshteyn, in Morgn-frayhayt (June 20, 1932); Epshteyn, in Ershter alveltlekher yidisher kultur-kongres (The first World
Jewish Culture Congress) (Paris, 1937), pp. 45, 216-26, 285, 362, 364; Al.
Pomerants, in Morgn-frayhayt
(September 24, 1931; July 2, 1944); Pomerants, in Proletpen (Kiev) (1935), pp. 42-42, 215-16; Pomerants, Inzhinyern fun neshomes (Engineers of souls) (New
York, 1944), pp. 69-70, 75; Pomerants, in Der
tog (February 10, 1952); Pomerants, in Edelshtat
gedenk-bukh (Memorial volume for [Dovid] Edelshtadt) (New York, 1953), pp.
530, 536, 549-53; Pomerants, Di
sovetishe haruge malkhes (The [Jewish writers] murdered by the Soviet
government) (Buenos Aires, 1961), pp. 47, 222, 303, 309, 323, 327, 341, 349,
354, 357, 359, 360-86, 390, 393, 396, 411, 416, 423; Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot,
1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem,
1961), see index; Y. Tsuzmer, Beikve hador (In the footprints of a generation) (New York, 1957),
p. 222; L. Sh. Kreditor, in Loshn un lebn
(London) (May 1947); G. Kresl, in Di
goldene keyt 13 (1952); Sh. Rozhanski, in Di yidishe tsaytung (Buenos Aires) (July 1956); Y. A. Rontsh, in Morgn-frayhayt (February 20, 1933;
December 16, 1952); Rontsh, Geklibene
shriftn (Selected writings) (New York, 1960); Dr. Y. Shatski, in Yivo-bleter (1954), pp. 381-84; Shatski,
Shatski-bukh (Shatski volume) (Buenos
Aires, 1958), p. 211; Elye (Elias) Shulman, Geshikhte fun der yidisher
literatur in amerike, 1870-1900 (History of Jewish literature in America,
1870-1900) (New York, 1943), pp. 56, 236; Shulman, in Der veker (New York) (March 1, 1951); Moyshe Shtarkman, in Pinkes fun amopteyl fun yivo (Records of the American division of YIVO),
vol. 1 (New York, 1927-1928), pp. 268-69; Shtarkman, in Tog (January 13, 1935); Shtarkman, in Di tsukunft (February 1951); L. Shpizman, in Idisher kemfer (Rosh Hashanah issue, 1956); N. B. Minkoff, in Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 7,
pp. 364-65; S. Wininger, Grosse Jüdische
National Biographie (Great Jewish national biography), vol. 4 (Czernowitz,
1930), pp. 282-83; Prof. A. A. Roback, Supplement
to the Story of Yiddish Literature (Cambridge, Mass., 1940), p. 24; M.
Starkman, in Jewish Book Annual (New
York) 4 (Jewish Book Council of America, 5706/1945-46), p. 71; M. Epstein, Jewish Labor in U.S.A.: An Industrial,
Political and Cultural History of the Jewish Labor Movement, 1882-1914 (New
York, 1950), pp. 7, 113; Epstein, The Jew
and Communism: The Story of Early
Communist Victories and Ultimate Defeats in The Jewish Community, U.S.A.,
1919-1941 (new York, 1959), pp. 80, 103, 394-98.
Aleksander Pomerants
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