A[LEKSANDER] GELBMAN

A[LEKSANDER] GELBMAN

            He was a Soviet Jewish pedagogue and writer who came from Ukraine.  He was the author of a number of textbooks for the Yiddish language and grammar, mostly for higher classes, such as Shprakh, lernbukh farn V yor (Language, textbook for the fifth school year), part 1 (Kharkov-Kiev, 1932), 132 pp.; Shprakh, lernbukh farn VI yor (Language, textbook for the sixth school year), part 2 (Kharkov-Kiev, 1933), 119 pp., reprinted in a number of editions until 1939; Gramatik (Grammar), part 1, monograph and textbook for middle school (Kharkov-Kiev, 1933), 116 pp.; Gramatik, part 2, syntax, textbook for the sixth and seventh school year (Kharkov-Kiev, 1933), 170 pp.  He also contributed reviews of pedagogical publications, as well as wrote about questions of Yiddish language and literature, for Emes (Truth) in Moscow and Der shtern (The star) in Kiev, and elsewhere.  He is thought to have died in the years of the struggle of the Soviet authorities against “cosmopolitism.”

Sources: Y. Kupershmid, in Shtern (Kharkov), no. 275 (1933); A. Maydanski, in Emes, no. 293 (1933); A. Zaretski, in Emes, no. 44 (1934); B. Grosman, in Ratnbildung (Kharkov) 1 (1934); N. Rubinshteyn, Dos yidishe bukh in ratnfarband (The Yiddish book in the Soviet Union) (1932, 1933, 1934, 1934), see index.

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 164.]