N. BENSON

N. BENSON (1870-1936)

Born in Vitebsk, Russia, he attended religious primary school as well as a Russian public school.  He was a laborer and an active leader in the party of the Russian Socialist Revolutionaries.  From 1900 he was living in Paris.  He was involved in circles of Jewish anarchists in the syndicalist movement.  He lived for several years in London.  After the Russian Revolution broke out in 1917, he returned to Russia and settled in Kiev.  He became apolitical and worked in a Jewish library.  He began publishing in Arbayter fraynd (Worker’s friend) in London, and from 1903 to 1914 he wrote about political and social issues for this serial; he also translated from the Russian press and literature under a variety of initials.  He translated Maxim Gorky’s Der brodyage (The tramp) (London: B. Ruderman, 1906), 45 pp.  He died in Kiev.