YANKEV-HIRSH KOLTUN

YANKEV-HIRSH KOLTUN (1887-1952)

            He was a journalist and community leader, born in Lubar (Lyubar), Ukraine. He attended his father’s religious elementary school and later a high school in Berdichev. From 1921 he was living in the city of Akerman, Bessarabia, and later in Warsaw where he was active in the Zionist socialist party. In 1925 he moved to the land of Israel and in 1928 he joined the Palestine Communist Party (P.K.P.). He was arrested in 1936 by the British authorities for his Communist activities. The Soviets exchanged him for arrested British spies. He lived in Moscow and prepared propaganda articles for: Der emes (The truth), Shtern (Star), and Odeser arbeter (Odessa worker). He wrote pamphlets about Birobidzhan and ideological work among the Jewish masses. From Israel he also wrote for Morgn frayhayt (Morning freedom) in New York. In book form: Yidishe gezelshaftlekhkeyt in biro-bidzhan (Jewish society in Birobidzhan), 20 pp.; Tsienizm, imperializm un arabisher ufshṭand (Zionism, imperialism, and the Arab uprising) (Moscow: Emes, 1937), 122 pp.; Di yidishe avtonome gegnt, birebidzhan (The Jewish Autonomous Region, Birobidzhan) (Tel Aviv, 1935), 64 pp. He also wrote Communist pamphlets in Hebrew. He died in Moscow.

Source: R. Lubits and B. Sekula, in Zo haderekh (This is the way) (Tel Aviv) (November 28, 1979).

Ruvn Goldberg

[Additional information from: Chaim Beider, Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc., 2011), p. 315.]