MOYSHE BEREZIN

MOYSHE BEREZIN (May 9, 1888-March 15, 1973)

The adopted name of Moyshe German, he was born in Kishinev, Bessarabia.  Until age ten he studied in religious primary school, thereafter in a Russian Jewish state school.  In 1905 he was active in the anarchist movement in Russia.  He was arrested and deported (1906) for five years, but with the help of his wife he escaped deportation and in 1911 arrived in the United States.  From 1920 he was living in Philadelphia.  By vocation he was a dental technician.  He was an active leader in the Workmen’s Circle, the “Radical Library,” and the Workers’ Educational Institute.  He was the founder of the anarchist Red Cross of Philadelphia.  He began writing for Russian anarchist serials.  From 1913 to 1952, he wrote for Fraye arbeter shtime (Free voice of labor) on social, communal, and economic problems.  He was the author of a book entitled Fun keytn tsu frayhayt, fartseykhenungen fun an antlofenem politishn katorzhnik (From chains to freedom, notes of a fugitive political convict), edited and with a preface by Moyshe Kats (New York: Anarchist Red Cross, 1916), 200 pp.  He also penned an unpublished drama, “Der falsher emes” (The false truth), which was staged in 1924 in the Yiddish theater.  He also wrote in English.  Among his pen names: Nazreb and M. B.  He died in Philadelphia.