MOYSHE GUTMAN (September 21, 1883-1939)
He was born in the town of Veper (Vepriai), Kovno district,
Lithuania, into a commercial household.
He studied in religious primary school, yeshivas, and with private
tutors. As an external student, in 1907
he sat for the examination to become a pharmacist’s assistant. From 1902 he was active in the Jewish labor
movement, initially working with the Labor Zionists (Poale-Tsiyon), later with
the Zionist socialists, and later still with the “Fareynikte” (United [socialist
party]). He was one of the initiators of
the Jewish school system in Tsarist Russia.
He was the author of a project concerned with a congress for Jewish
emigration. He was coopted in 1909 to
join the central committee of the Zionist Socialist Party, and he was a
delegate to the Kovno conference of Jewish communities, during which he was
arrested and thrown in jail for a short period of time in Lodz. After being freed at the end of 1910, he
lived in Lodz and Warsaw, and he was active in the Jewish teachers’ union. In 1912 he participated in the Territorialist
Conference in Vienna concerned with Angola.
When he returned to Russia, he was arrested again and placed in prisons in
Kiev and Warsaw (Pawiak). He later lived
illegally in Pinsk, Homel (Hamel, Gomel), and Minsk. During the years of WWI, he was active in
Yekopo (Yevreyskiy komitet pomoshchi
zhertvam voyny—“Jewish Relief Committee for War Victims”) in the community
and in ORT (Association for the Promotion of Skilled Trades)
in Kiev, and in the zemstvo (local electoral districts) association in
Odessa. With the outbreak of the Russian
Revolution in 1917, he served as chairman of the first committee to organize a
workers’ council in Odessa and as a representative of the Fareynikte to the
third all-Russian conference of trade unions in Petrograd. Together with Henryk Erlich, in September
1917 he was coopted into Kerensky’s “pre-parliament.” Both were representatives of the Jewish
socialist parties. At that time he was
also the representative of his party in the general executive committee of the
workers’ councils in Russia. He was
(July-August 1917) a member of the Ukrainian central council (rada) in
Kiev; and he was (December 1917) a member of the council of the Byelorussian
People’s Republic in Minsk. He administered
the point in the council’s manifesto concerning the national-personal autonomy
for the Jews. He also served as a counselor
for the Minsk community. From December 1918
until the beginning of 1925, he was in Warsaw where he was active in the Jewish
trade and school movement and in the office for laborers’ emigration at the
central bureau of the Jewish trade unions.
He was the author of a project to have a democratic electoral law for the
Jewish communities. He chaired a
committee to reform Yiddish orthography.
From December 1921 until the end of 1924, he was a member of the
Bund. Late in 1924 at the third
conference of the Bund, he left it and joined the Communists. He was living in early 1925 in Soviet Russia. In Kharkov he worked as a Yiddish teacher and
writer. He was active as well in “Gezerd” (All-Union Association for
the Agricultural Settlement of Jewish Workers in the USSR). During the trials of 1937, he was arrested
and deported to a camp—he was “liquidated” in 1939.
He began
writing in the Khronik fun poyle-tsien (Chronicle of Labor Zionists),
which he also edited (Vilna, 1903). From
that point in time he published in organs of the Zionist socialists (later, the
Fareynikte): Unzer veg (Our way) in Vilna (1907); the anthology Tsukunft
(Future) in St. Petersburg (1913); Idishe proletaryer (Jewish
proletariat) in Kiev (1917); Unzer vort (Our word) in Odessa (1917); Naye
tsayt (Our time) in Kiev; Fraynd (Friend) in St. Petersburg-Warsaw; Hazman
(The times) in Vilna; Folkstsaytung (People’s newspaper) in Warsaw; and
in the Russian-language press as well.
After leaving for the Soviet Union, he contributed (1929-1934) to: the
daily newspaper Der shtern (The star) in Kharkov-Minsk; Der veker
(The alarm) in Minsk; Gezerd; and Afn shprakhfront (On the
language front), among others. He edited
such party publications as: Der shtral (The ray) in Homel (1918); and the
anthology Foroys (Onward) in Vilna (1919). He served on the editorial board of Unzer
veg, Nayer veg (New way); Unzer nayer veg (Our new way); and
other party publications of the Fareynikte in Russia and Poland. He wrote about the economy, politics, trade,
and emigration issues (in Soviet Russia also about matters concerning Yiddish language
and orthography). Among his pseudonyms:
B. Zelikovitsh, Baltikaklis, Mogn, Der mizinik, B. Mikhlin, M. Kamenshteyn, and
others. Together with Iser Goldberg, he
published the pamphlet: Di fareynikte oyfn sheydveg (The United at a
crossroads).
Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Moyshe
Gutman, “Zikhroynes” (Memoirs), Roytes pinkes (Warsaw) 1 (1921); Toyzent
yor pinsk (1000 years of Pinsk) (New York, 1941), pp. 123, 161; Khayim
Shloyme Kazdan, Fun heyder un “shkoles”
biz tsisho, dos ruslendishe yidntum in gerangel far shul, shprakh, kultur (From religious primary school and [non-Jewish]
schools until Tsisho, Russian Judaism in conflict over school, language,
culture) (Mexico, 1956), see index.
Khayim Leyb Fuks
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