MEYLEKH NOY-NAYSHTADT

MEYLEKH NOY-NAYSHTADT (October 31, 1895-September 15, 1959)

            He was born in Radomishl (Radomyśl), Galicia.  He attended religious elementary school and studied secular subjects on his own.  Through great personal diligence and firmness of will, he succeeded over the course of a short period of time in gaining a full-fledged education and a profound proficiency in the problems of community life.  He was drafted at age seventeen into the Austrian army, served during WWI, and was also a prisoner of war in Russia.  His political and community activities began early.  Already in 1911 he assumed an important position in the secretariat of the Cracow organization of the Youth Labor Movement (“Yugnt”), which was tied to the Labor Zionist party.  After WWI he was secretary of the Labor Zionist party in Germany, and he founded the biweekly party organ, Unzer bavegung (Our movement), which he wrote largely by himself.  In 1926 he settled in the land of Israel.  He was, until 1929, the director of the Palestine Labor Fund, and later he traveled to Poland on assignment for Histadruth, served a chair of the Israel Office in Warsaw, and was editor of the party newspaper Dos vort (The word).  In 1930 he organized in Berlin the congress for workers in the land of Israel.  He returned to Israel in 1934 and took over the post of secretary general of “Iḥud olami” (World union) of all the national organizations of the Labor Zionists, which he ran from the main office in Tel Aviv for over twenty years.  From 1936 he was the director of the Bureau of Taxation (“Lishkat Hamas”) of Histadruth.  During the years of Hitler’s ascendency, he was for years in Constantinople, from whence he organized aid and rescue work for those who were suffering under Nazism.  In his last years, he turned his attention to working out a plan for organizational changes in the Zionist world organization—the commission that was to carry out this plan was actually called the “Noy Commission,” according to his Hebraized surname.  Noy wrote a great deal—on the problems of the Jewish labor movement, on the Zionist organization, and on the state of Israel—in the Jewish press of various countries, among them: the New York-based Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter) and Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal) for which he was a regular contributor from 1948.  From 1949 he was editor of Yiddish-language organ of “Iḥud olami”—Yisroel (Israel)—in Tel Aviv.  In Israel he contributed to: Davar (Word), Kuntres (Pamphlet), and Hapoel hatsair (The young worker), among others.  His books on the Holocaust in Warsaw, in Yiddish and in Hebrew, are among the most significant in this field of study.  His book on the problems of the Zionist and the Labor Zionist movement following the rise of the state of Israel and his historical volume concerning ten years of the state of Israel occupy an important place in our social and political literature.  In book form, he published: 15 yor palestina-arbeter-fond (Fifteen years of the Palestine Labor Fund), with a preface by Shloyme Kaplanski (Tel Aviv, 1928), 129 pp.; Der yidisher arbeter in erets-yisroel (The Jewish worker in the land of Israel) (Rio de Janeiro: Labor Zionists in Brazil, 1928), 20 pp.; Di velt-bavegung un ire aktuele problemen, vegn der baratung fun der velt-fareynikung poyle-tsien (The world movement and its real problems, on the conference for the world association of Labor Zionism) (Tel Aviv: World Union of Labor Zionists and Histadruth, 1939), 16 pp.; Hamas haaḥid vetafkidav (The consolidated tax and its functions) (Tel Aviv: Labor Council, 1941), 16 pp.; Der koyekh fun der histadrut (The power of Histadruth) (Tel Aviv, 1942), 35 pp.; Shenat hashmada, hayahadut utenuatenu batekufet hanatsit al sof shenat tsh”d (The year of destruction, Judaism and our organization in the Nazi era at the end of 1942/1943) (Tel Aviv, 1943), 46 pp.; Ḥaverut umisim bahistadrut bitekufat hamilḥama (Membership and taxes in Histadruth in the war period) (Tel Aviv: Labor Council, 1944), 46 pp.; Di kemfer fun varshever geto dertseyln (The fighters from the Warsaw Ghetto recount) (Tel Aviv, 1945), 40 pp.; Al hayahadut utenuatenu beartsot eropa (rishme bikur baaviv 1946) (Jews and our organization in the countries of Europe, listing of visits in the spring of 1946) (Tel Aviv, 1946), 64 pp.; Vegn yidishn lebn un undzer bavegung in eyrope, ayndrukn fun a rayze in friling 1946 (On Jewish life and our movement in Europe, impressions from a trip in the spring of 1946) (Tel Aviv, 1946), 64 pp.; Der ruf fun der velt-bavegung tsu der poyle-tsien partey in poyln (Appeal from the world movement to the Labor Zionist party in Poland) (Paris: Iḥud, 1946), 32 pp.; Ḥurban umered shel yehude varsha, sefer eduyot veazkarot (Destruction and rising of the Jews of Warsaw, testimonies and memorials) (Tel Aviv, 1946), 443 pp., with photographs; Berl loker a ben-shishim (Berl Loker, a sixty-year-old) (Tel Aviv, 1947), 15 pp.; Khurbn un oyfshtand fun di idn in varshe, eydes-bleter un azkores (Destruction and rising of the Jews of Warsaw, testimonies and memorials), trans. D. B. Malkin (Tel Aviv: Greater Labor Council, General Labor Organization of Israel and the Jewish National Labor Union of America, 1948), 720 pp.—part 1, “Eydes-bleter” (Testimonies); part 2, “Di gefalene af der vakh” (The fallen while on watch); Mered yehude varshe, lefi edut loḥame hageto (The Jewish uprising in Warsaw, according to testimony of fighters of the ghetto) (Tel Aviv: Iḥud olami, 1945), 24 pp.; Di naye virklekhkeyt, tsienistishe un arbeter-tsienistishe bavegung nokhn oyfkum fun medines yisroel (The new reality, the Zionist and Labor Zionist movement after the emergence of the state of Israel) (Tel Aviv, 1954), 356 pp.; Beḥirot histadrut, ketsad? (Elections to Histadruth, how?) (Tel Aviv, 1955), 35 pp.; Bemaarakha ḥadasha, hatenua hatsiyonit utenuat haavoda hatsiyonit im kom ha-medina (In a new campaign, the Zionist movement and the Zionist labor movement upon the establishment of the state) (Tel Aviv, 1955), 350 pp., second edition (1956); Geboy, kharakter un oyfshtayg fun histadrut, vos di histadrut fodert funem arbeter un vos di histadrut git dem arbeter (Structure, character, and ascent of Histadruth, what Histadruth demands of the worker and what Histadruth gives the worker) (Tel Aviv, 1955), 47 pp.; Mivne, ofya vehitaluta shel hahistadrut (Structure, character, and ascent of Histadruth) (Tel Aviv, 1955), 52 pp.; Bereshit uveasor limedinat yisrael (At the beginning and at the decade point of the state of Israel) (Jerusalem-Tel Aviv, 1958), 343 pp.; Dos ershte un dos tsente yor medines yisroel, tsurikblik un iberblik (The first and the tenth year of the state of Israel, retrospective and survey) (Tel Aviv: Y. L. Perets Library, 1958), 406 pp.  He died in the state of Israel.

Sources: D. Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the pioneers and builders of the yishuv), vol. 4 (Tel Aviv, 1950), p. 1732; Sh. Levenberg, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (April 11, 1955); B. Tsukerman, in Idisher kemfer (New York) (June 1, 1956); A. Sheli, in Bitsaron (New York) (Elul [= August-September] 1956); Meylekh Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 3 (Montreal, 1958), p. 480; P. Shteynvaks, Siluetn fun a dor (Silhouettes of a generation) (Buenos Aires, 1958), pp. 109-13; F. Kadishzon, in Idisher kemfer (November 21, 1958); Kadishzon, in Di naye tsayt (Buenos Aires) (November 19, 1959); Dr. Hertsel Berger, in Di pyonern-froy (New York) (November-December 1958); Dr. Y. Tenenboym, in Di tsukunft (New York) (February 1959); Y. M. Bobrov, in Dos vort (Montreal) (April 28, 1959); M. Yarblum, in Hapoel hatsayir (Tel Aviv) (September 22, 1959); Anshl Rays,  in Hapoel hatsayir (September 22, 1959); Rays, in Idisher kemfer (October 9, 1959); Rays, in Naye tsayt (Buenos Aires) (October 18, 1960); L. Sigal, in Idisher kemfer (October 16, 1959); B. Ts. Goldberg, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (October 19, 1959); obituary notices and eulogies from fifteen representative of Iḥud (Tel Aviv, 1960); Yitsḥak Goldshlag, in Areshet (Expression), vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1959/1960).

Mortkhe Yofe