KHAYIM HOLMSHTOK

KHAYIM HOLMSHTOK (1882-1942)

            Younger brother of the writer Fayvl Holmshtok, he was born in Minsk, Byelorussia.  From 1916 to 1918, he lived in the United States.  He was active in the “Workers’ University” at the Sholem-Aleichem Folk Institute in New York.  He returned to Soviet Russia in 1918, and there became a teacher and turned his attention to Soviet Yiddish scholarship.  He wrote about pedagogy and linguistic matters in various Soviet Yiddish publications, such as: Yunger pyoner (Young pioneer) in Minsk (April 2, 1927).  He was the editor of Lingvistishe zamlung 1 (Linguistics collection 1), with style-editor M. Kulbak (Minsk, 1931), 93 pp.; and Oktyaber-kinder (October children), with L. Mishkovski and Sh. Rives (Moscow, 1919), a textbook for Jewish school.  He also translated: Dos kinstlerishe shafn (The artistic works) by D. Nikolaevich [Ovsi︠a︡niko-Kulikovskii] (New York, 1919), 52 pp.; Politishe ekonomye (Political economy [original: Kurs politicheskoi ekonomii]) by Aleksandr Bogdanov (New York, 1920), vol. 1, 244 pp., vol. 2, 551 pp.; Shtat-visnshaft (State science [original: Ocherki nauki o gosudarstvi︠e︡]) by V. I. Dunaev and A. A. Nikitskii (New York, 1920), 300 pp. (edited by Dr. Yitskhok-Ayzik Hurvits); Komunistisher manifest (Communist manifesto) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (Moscow, 1924), 181 pp., republished in Warsaw (1931 and 1932); Di arbet fun der fabrik un zavod-komitet ba di badingungen fun der itstiker tsayt (The work of the factory and the plant committee under contemporary conditions [original: Rabota fabrichno-zavodskikh komitetov v sovremennykh uslovii︠a︡kh]) by F. Seniushkin (Minsk, 1926), 120 pp.  He also contributed work to Afn shprakhfront (On the language front), in which (no. 3-4) he published a work entitled: “Vegn dem yidishn oystaytsh-verterbukh” (On the Yiddish explanatory dictionary).  He was also editor of Yidisher verterbukh (Yiddish dictionary), test volume (Minsk, 1935), and he wrote the preface to it.  His subsequent career remains unknown.

Sources: M. Gurevitsh, in Emes (Moscow) 283 (1935); Y. M. Budish, Almanakh in dinst fun folk (Almanac in service to the people) (New York, 1947), p. 382.