ARN (AHARON, AARON) ALBEK

ARN (AHARON, AARON) ALBEK (d. 1943)

Born in Ostrów, Mazowiecka (Ostrov, Mazovyetsk), Poland.  He was the son of the rabbi of Zhirardov, Rabbi Menakhem-Mendl.  He studied both Torah and Haskole.  Because of his conspiratorial work in the Poale-Tsiyon movement, he suffered persecution from the Russian police.  He was preparing for a baccalaureate in Warsaw.  At the end of 1913 he settled in Bialystok.  During WWI, he was active in consumer unions in Hazamir (The nightingale) of which he became the vice-chairman, later chairman.  In late 1918, he was a cofounder of the Folk’s Party.  At the founding of the Folk’s Party in Vilna in 1926, he was selected to serve on the central committee.  He was a cofounder and editorial board member of Dos naye lebn (The new life) in Bialystok, in which he published articles and a series of stories drawn from Hassidic life.  In 1921 he founded a publishing house, “Albek,” which put out an entire series of works, among them: Noah Prylucki’s Yidish teater (Yiddish theater), and P. Kaplan’s Krilovs mesholim (Krilov’s fables) and Yapanishe mayselekh (Japanese stories).  For a period of time he was a council member in the Jewish community and the city council.  He wrote a valuable memoir about Jewish writers.  He died in the Bialystok ghetto in 1943.

Sources: Byalistoker leksikon (Bialystok handbook) (1935); B. Mark, Der oyfshtand in byalistoker geto (The uprising in the Bialystok ghetto) (Warsaw, 1950), pp. 141-42.