ESTER (ESTHER FRUMKIN) (1880-June 8, 1943)
Literary name of Malke Lifshits, she was born in Minsk,
Byelorussia (Belarus). She took the surname
Frumkin from her first husband; her second husband was surnamed Vikhman. She was raised in a well-to-do merchant,
scholarly, enlightened home. Her grandfather
was a Hassidic rabbi and scholar, while her father was a follower of the Jewish Enlightenment movement, an accomplished man, who wrote Yiddish poetry and
prose. Her mother came from the Katsenelenboygn
and Rom (Romm) families of Vilna. Until
age eleven, Ester studied Tanakh in the original. After graduating from high school in Minsk,
she entered the Bestuzhev Course in St. Petersburg, later also an auditor in
the University of Berlin. Back in Minsk,
she worked for several years as a teacher in the Minsk Professional School for
Girls. In 1901 she joined the Bund, and
she became active as a propagandist. For
her first literary piece of work, she translated into Yiddish Vladimir Korolenko’s
“Di agode fun kinig agripes un flores, dem prokurator fun yehude” (The story of
King Agrippa and Flora, procurator of Judea) (St. Petersburg: Naye biblyotek,
1904)—Russian original: “Skazanie o Flore, Agrippe i Menakheme, syne Yegudy” (Story of
Flora, Agrippa, and Menakhem, son of Judea).[1] After the Russian Revolution of 1905, she
began to play a conspicuous role in the Bundist movement. She was the Duma correspondent in St.
Petersburg for the Bundist daily in Vilna, Der veker (The alarm), later Di
folkstsaytung (The people’s newspaper).
She also participated in editing the Vilna collections: Di naye tsayt
(The new times), Tsayt-fragn (Issues of the times), Di naye shtime
(The new voice), and Fragn un lebn (Issues and life) in which she wrote
under the pen name of D. Katsenelenboygn, and among many other things she
published her work on national education and school issues. She took part in the Czernowitz Language
Conference in 1908, and there she represented the position of “proletarian”
Yiddishism, calling for Yiddish to be declared “the”—not “a”—national language
of the Jewish people (she published a report from the conference in the
collection, Di naye tsayt 4 [Vilna, 1909]). In 1910 the Bundist publisher, “Di velt” (The
world), in Vilna, brought out her major work: Tsu der frage vegn der yidisher
folkshul (On the question of the Jewish public school) (third printing, St.
Petersburg, 1917). Over the years
1910-1914, on several occasions she was arrested, escaped abroad, and became
active there as a member of the foreign committee of the Bund. At the start of WWI, she returned to
Russia—and she was sent at the time of the war to Chervony Bor, Astrakhan
district. After the February Revolution
in 1917, she returned to Minsk, joined the Central Committee of the Bund,
became editor of the principal Bundist organ, Der veker (a daily
newspaper), was selected to the Minsk city council as well as the council of the Jewish
community; she became the director of the education office of the city and the
province; she ordered the building of new Jewish schools, teachers’ courses of
study, and cultural associations; she was on the managing committee of the workers
university and lectured there on the nationality question. She wrote a great
deal, frequently appeared on stage giving speeches, and truly stood at the
center of social, political, and cultural activities of the city. At that time, as was the case earlier, she
belonged to the Menshevik wing of the Social Democratic Party. Following the eleventh congress of the Bund
(Minsk, 1919), she moved to the left and became one of the most active propagandists
who sought to Bolshevize the Bund. After
the split up of the Bund in April 1920, she (together with Arn
Vaynshteyn-Yerakhmiel) became the leader of “Kombund” (Communist Bund). At the Kombund’s dissolution conference in
March 1921 in Moscow, she helped bring an end to the Kombund and moved fully
over to the Jewish section (Yevsektsiia) of the Alfarbandishe komunistishe
partey (All-Union Communist Party [=Bolsheviks]). She also became a member of Yidgezkom (Jewish
Social Committee [for the Relief of Victims of
War, Pogroms, and Natural Disasters]) and an editor for the Moscow-based Emes
(Truth) in which she published a great number of articles, principally about
cultural issues, educational problems, and the new way of life. Together with Moyshe Litvakov, she edited the
eight-volume edition of Lenin’s writings in Yiddish translation, by herself translated the
third volume [see below], and wrote Lenin, zayn lebn in zayn lere
(Lenin, his life and his teachings).
Among her other books: Tsu der frage vegn
der yidisher folksshul: di muter-shprakh un di folksshul, di fremde shprakh in
der yidisher shul, yidish, di yidishe folksshul un dos yidishe folk (On the
question of the Jewish public school: the mother tongue and the public school,
foreign tongue in the Jewish school, Yiddish, the Jewish public school, and the
Jewish people) (Vilna, 1910), 97 pp.; Shul-fragn (School issues) (St.
Petersburg, 1917); Hirsh lekert (Hirsh Lekert) (Moscow: Yungvald, 1922),
39 pp.; Lenin un zayn arbet (Lenin and his work) (Moscow: Tsentr farlag,
1925), 271 pp. (second printing, 1926); Mit lenins veg (On Lenin’s path)
(Moscow: 1925), 60 pp.; Oktyabr-revolutsye (October revolution) (Moscow,
1928), 332 pp.; Fuftsen tsuzamenfor fun al. k. p. (b), vegn der opozitsye
(Fifteenth convention of the All-Russia Communist Party [Bolsheviks], on the
opposition) (Moscow, 1938), 88 pp.; a Yiddish translation of Lenin’s Yorn
fun der kontr-revolutsye (Years of counter-revolution) [vol. 3 of Oygeveylte
verk (Selected works)] (Moscow, 1929), 256 pp.; and the forward to Yidn
in f. s. s. r. (Jews in the USSR) by A. Brakhman and Y. Zhiv (Moscow,
1930). In the years 1923-1928, she
served on the editorial board of Yungvald (Young forest) and Pyonir
(Pioneer); was the editor of Politalefbeyz farn komyugist (Political alphabet
for a member of the Communist Youth League) (Moscow, 1925), 183 pp. Until the liquidation of former Bundists in
the Russian Communist Party in the late 1930s, she was the director of the
Jewish section of the University of the Peoples of the West under the
Comintern; the Jewish students there referred to it as the Mayrevke. After the purges of 1936 began, Esther was arrested—and
nothing was subsequently heard from her.
According to one piece of information, she was sent to the Butyrka prison
in Moscow, and in 1938 she was sent to Chibyu, Ukhta, in the Komi People’s
Republic where she died at the end of 1938 or beginning of 1939. This information was later confirmed by a
former Soviet official who was sent to the Ukht-Izhemsky Camp. We bow know that Ester Frumkin died in a Soviet forced labor
camp in Kazakhstan in 1943.
Sources:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon fun der yidisher literatur, prese un filologye, vol. 1 (New York, 1928); A. Liessin, Zikhroynes un bilder
(Memories and images) (New York, 1954), p. 272; N. Kharin, “Briv fun a fraynd”
(Letter from a friend), Der veker (New York) (February 12, 1938); D. Tsharni,
in Der veker (New York) (December 31, 1938); Ben-tsien Kats, “Di sore
bas toyvim fun der rusisher revolutsye” (The Sarah, daughter of Tovim, of the
Russian Revolution), Morgn-zhurnal (New York) (February 13, 1931);
Yankev Leshtshinski, Tsvishn lebn un toyt (Between life and death), vol.
1 (Vilna, 1930), pp. 85-95; A. Reyzen, Epizodn fun mayn lebn (Episodes
from my life), part 3 (Vilna, 1935), pp. 326-36; A. Litvak, Geklibene shriftn
(Collected writings) (New York, 1945), p. 195; Gina Medem, A lebnsveg (A
life’s path) (New York, 1950), p. 185.
Yitskhok Kharlash
[1] Translator’s note.
I believe there is something awry in the Yiddish title but have been
unable to figure it out.
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