AVROM KIRZHNITS

AVROM KIRZHNITS (1888-1940)

            He was journalist, bibliographer, and historical researcher into the Jewish labor movement in Russia, born in Babruysk, Minsk Province, Byelorussia. He received a traditional education and later studied in the Białystok Commercial School, from which he was expelled for revolutionary activities. He concerned himself with Jewish bibliographic matters as a member of the library commission of “Khevre mefitse haskole” (Society for the promotion of enlightenment [among the Jews of Russia]). He was active in the Bund. He worked for Russian newspapers in Minsk, Homyel', Babruysk, and elsewhere. He lived in St. Petersburg for two years. On the eve of WWI, he edited his first handbook on bibliographic matters, Yorbukh far yidishe biblyotekn afn yor 1914 (Yearbook for Jewish libraries for the year 1914), and the quarterly journal Der yidisher biblyoteker (The Jewish librarian). In 1915 he was exiled to Siberia for revolutionary work. After the October Revolution (1917), he joined the Communist Party and took up Jewish bibliographic and historical research, including a history of the Bund. In 1924 he settled in Moscow and worked there as a teacher in the Jewish division of the Communist University of National Minorities of the West. Over the course of the 1920s and 1930, he published his work on the history of the Yiddish press. His first major bibliographic work was Di parteyish-sovetishe prese, 1917-1923 (The Party-Soviet press, 1917-1923), published by Istpart. From 1925 he was an internal contributor for the newspaper Der emes (The truth) in which he ran the sections “Biblyografye” (Bibliography) and “Shtot, shtetl un dorf” (City, town, and village). At the same time, he was collecting materials on the Soviet Yiddish press and publishing, which he published over the course of the 1920s and 1930s. During the purges of the later 1930s, he was arrested in 1937 and thought to have perished somewhere in the Soviet Union the next year. In fact, he was set free that year and permitted to return to Moscow, where he died prematurely two years later. His journalistic work in Yiddish began in 1906 for the Bundist Folks-tsaytung (People’s newspaper). He wrote articles on Jewish life, Jewish library work, statistics, and reviews in: Fraynd (Friend [Dos leben (Life)]), Leben un visenshaft (Life and science), Di yudishe velt (The Jewish world), Shmuel Niger’s Di vokh (The week), Arbayter-shtime (Workers’ voice), Minsk’s Shtern (Star), Visnshaftlekhe yorbikher (Scientific yearbook) (Moscow: Central People’s Publishers, USSR, 1929), and other publications in the Soviet Union, as well as New York’s Tsukunft (Future) in which he published a series of bibliographical articles on the Yiddish labor press.

He also published and edited: Bobroysker vokhenblat (Babruysk weekly newspaper) with Mendl Elfin, Bobroysker sheygets (Babruysk smart aleck) (or Yugatsh [Kids], 1912), and the anthology Lekoved yontef (In honor of the holiday) of 1913; and the first handbook in Yiddish for library science, Yorbukh far yidishe biblyotekn afn yor 1914 (Vilna: B. Kletskin, 1914), 147 pp.; Der idisher biblyotekar (The Jewish librarian), only one issue because of the outbreak of WWI; the Bundist Der veker (The alarm) in Minsk, for a short time; the first Yiddish publication in Siberia and China, Der vayter mizrekh (The Far East), a literary and community newspaper (Harbin, 1922; at the end of the year it closed down with Kirzhnits’s departure). His writings included: Vemen darf men klaybn in shtot-dumes (Whom should we choose for the city dumas?) (Minsk: Bund, 1917), 18 pp.; Der idisher arbeter, khrestomaṭye tsu der geshikhte fun der idisher arbeter, revolutsyonerer un sotsyalistisher bavegung in rusland (The Jewish worker, a reader on the history of the Jewish laborer, revolutionary, and socialist movement in Russia), edited by Moyshe Rafes (Moscow: Central People’s Publishers, USSR, 1925-1928), 4 vols.; Di profbavegung tsvishn di idishe arbeter in di yorn fun der ershter revolutsye (The trade union movement among Jewish workers in the years of first revolution) (Moscow: Shul un bukh, 1926), 96 pp.; Di lener blut-bod, 17 aprel 1917 (The Lena bloodbath, April 17, 1912) (Minsk: Central Council of Trade Unions, 1927), 100 pp.; Di yidishe prese in vaysrusland, 1917-1927 (The Yiddish press in Byelorussia, 1917-1927) (Minsk: Byelorussian State Library, 1929), 26 pp.; Di “heylike” shediker in undzer kultur-revolutsye (The “holy” saboteur in our cultural revolution) (Moscow: Bezbozhnik, 1929), 32 pp.; Di yidishe prese in der gevezener ruslendisher imperye, 1823-1916 (The Yiddish press in the former Russian empire, 1823-1916) (Moscow: Central People’s Publishers, USSR, 1930), 149 pp.; Di yidishe avtonome gegnt in oyfshtayg (The Jewish autonomous region in ascent) (Moscow: Emes, 1936), 91 pp., published earlier in Yidn in fssr (Jews in the USSR) (Moscow: Emes, 1935). Aside from his contributions to the Russian press, he published additional volumes in Russian. Concerning Kirzhnits’s bibliography of the Yiddish press in Tsarist Russia, Yankev Shatski wrote: “This work is one of the finest and most useful gifts that Jewish scholarship in the Soviet Union has given us generally.”

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1962), see index; Shmuel Niger, in Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) (April 29, 1927); Yankev Shatski, in Yivo-bleter (Vilna) (April-May 1932), pp. 437-39; Yizker-bukh far bobroysker kehile un umgegent (Remembrance volume for the Jewish community of Babruysk and environs) (Tel Aviv, 1967), see index; Sovetish heymland (Moscow) 6 (1973), a biography of him; Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York); A. A. Greenbaum, Jewish Scholarship in Soviet Russia (Jerusalem, 1978).

Dr. Avrom Grinboym

[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), pp. 338-39.]