B. GOLDGAR

B. GOLDGAR

            He was born in Poland and came to New York in the 1880s.  A pioneer in the Jewish anarchist movement in America, he served as secretary of the Jewish Propaganda Organization (founded by F. Mirovitsh in June 1882) which held as its goal to lead agitation for freedom of thought among the Jewish masses and Jewish intellectuals.  In 1884 he worked in Duke’s tobacco factory in Durham, North Carolina, where he launched a covert union of the local workers.  He later was a resident of Macon, Georgia, where he involved himself in community work and even became president of an Orthodox synagogue, while still always remaining faithful to his anarchist views.  Together with Mirovitsh, he authored: Der amerikaner (The American), “practical textbook with which in a short time one will learn to speak, read, and write the English language without any help from a teacher,” published by Sarasohn’s Yudishe gazeten (Jewish gazette) (New York, 1883), 192 pp.; this book should be considered the second Yiddish book published in the United States—after Yankev Tsvi Sobel’s Shir hazahav lekoved yisroel hazaken (The song of gold in honor of ancient Israel).

Sources: Ab. Kahan, Bleter fun mayn lebn (Pages from my life), vol. 2 (New York, 1926), p. 108 and vol. 4 (1928), pp. 566-67; Moyshe Shtarkman, in Yorbukh fun amopteyl (Annual from the American branch [of YIVO]), vol. 2 (New York, 1939), pp. 181-90; Geshikhte fun der yidisher arbeter bavegung in di fareynikte shtatn (History of the Jewish labor movement in the United States), vol. 2 (New York: YIVO, 1945), see index; Yorbukh (New York) (1942-1943); Tog-morgn-zhurnal (November 14, 1954); Metsuda 7 (1953/1954).