YOYSEF SHEKHTMAN (JOSEPH SCHECHTMAN) (September 6,
1891-March 1, 1970)
He was
born in Odessa. He graduated from a
Russian Jewish high school in Odessa and the law faculty in Berlin and
Odessa. He received his doctoral degree
in 1914. He was a member of the
All-Russian Jewish Conference in Petrograd (1917), of the Ukrainian Central and
Minor Rada (Council), a deputy of the Ukrainian founding assembly, and in later
years among the highest authorities of the Zionist and Revisionist
movement. He resided in Kishinev, Riga,
London, Berlin (until 1932), Paris, and from 1941 New York. He began doing journalism, later switching to
research work, combining demography, population transfers, and refugee issues. He debuted in print in 1909 in Voskhod (Arise) and later contributed to
a string of Russian Jewish periodicals; he also wrote in German, French, and
English, and published books in those languages. Among other works, he penned a two-volume
monograph on Zev Jabotinsky. He also
composed articles in Yiddish for: the Zionist Der telegraf (The telegraph) and Af der vakh (On guard) in Kiev; Idishe
shtime (Jewish voice) in Kovno; Haynt
(Today) and Moment (Moment) in Warsaw;
Tribune (Tribune) in Berlin and London
(1922); Der nayer veg (The new way)
in London (1929-1931); Morgn-zhurnal
(Morning journal) and Tog (Day) in
New York; Keneder odler (Canadian
eagle) in Montreal; Idishe tsaytung (Jewish
newspaper) in Buenos Aires; and Yivo-bleter
(Pages from YIVO) (issues 26 and 37). With
Shmuel Tshernovits, he edited the weekly Dos
idishe folk (The Jewish people) (Kiev, 1918); with A. Tsherikover and
others, Di idishe avtonomye un der
natsyonaler sekretaryat in ukrayne (Jewish autonomy and the national
secretariat in Ukraine) (Kiev, 1920), 330-plus pp.; with Shaye Klinov, Der id (The Jew) (Kishinev, 1921); with
Zev-Volf Latski-Bertoldi, Dos folk
(The people) (1926). In Yiddish he
published: Ver iz farantvortlikh far di
pogromen in ukrayne (Who is responsible for the pogroms in Ukraine) (Paris,
1927), 155 pp.; Revizyonizm un di idishe
arbetershaft in erets-yisroel (Revisionism and Jewish labor in the land of
Israel) (Warsaw, 1933), 38 pp.; Teritoryalistishe
iluzyes (Territorialist illusions) (Warsaw, 1939), 60 pp. His pen name in Yiddish was Borisov. He died in New York.
Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; Encyclopedia
of Zionism and Israel, vol. 2 (New York, 1971).
Berl Cohen
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