SHAYE LIPOVSKI

SHAYE LIPOVSKI (1874-August 1942)

            He was born in Mohilev (Mogilev), Byelorussia.  In his youth he moved with his parents to a village near Warsaw.  He attended religious primary school, later turning his attention to self-study.  He served in the Tsarist army, became ill with tuberculosis, went to treat it at a foreign sanitarium, and at the same time continued his studies and received his doctoral degree in economic science from the University of Berne in Switzerland.  From late 1913 he was living in Warsaw, and he was active in the Bund, in the society to combat illiteracy, and later in Tsisho (Central Jewish School Organization).  In 1916 he began contributing work to the Bundist Lebens-fragen (Life issues) in Warsaw.  In the anthology Karl marks (Karl Marx) (Warsaw, 1918), he published two pieces entitled “Karl marks als ekonomist” (Karl Marx as economist) and “Di geshikhte-filosofye fun karl marks” (The philosophy of history of Karl Marx).  He also placed work in the collections of Unzer shtime (Our voice) (Warsaw, August-November 1918) and in the yearbooks Arbeter-luekh (Workers’ calendar) (Warsaw, 1920-1926).  Lipovski was the main statistician in carrying out the Joint Distribution Committee’s questionnaire about Jewish industry in Poland in 1921—the work resulting from the questionnaire was published in three volumes: Yidishe industryele unternemungen in poyln (Jewish industrial undertakings in Poland) (Warsaw, 1922-1924).  He also was a regular contributor to: Virtshaft un lebn (Economy and life) (1920-1931) and Bleter far yidisher demografye, statistik un ekonomye (Jewish demography, statistics, and economics) (1923-1925)—both in Berlin; Di kooperative bavegung (The cooperative movement) (1928-1939), Folks-hilf (People’s aid) (1931-1939), and Dos virtshaftlekhe lebn (The economic life) (1934-1935)—all in Warsaw; and Yivo-bleter (Pages from YIVO) (1934-1939) and Di yidishe ekonomye (The Jewish economy) (1937-1939)—both in Vilna; among others.  In the Warsaw Ghetto he carried out various studies for the Joint concerning Jewish life in the ghetto, among them the refugees who wandered from villages to Warsaw during the German occupation.  He was also among the leadership of the Jewish underground cultural club known by the acronym “YIKOR” in the ghetto.  At the end of July 1942, he was taken to Treblinka and murdered there.  As Dr. E. Ringelblum wrote, Dr. Lipovski “left behind him in the ghetto an entire series of scholarly writings in the field of the Jewish economy in Poland.”  Unfortunately, these writings were not found.  He also wrote under such pen names as: A. Lindeman and A Zokn.

Sources: Yivo-bleter (New York) 26.1 (1945); A. Bloshteyn, in Unzer tsayt (New York) (January-February 1947); H. Vaser, in Dos naye lebn (Lodz) (August 4, 1947); Dr. E. Ringelblum, Notitsn fun varshever geto (Notices from the Warsaw Ghetto) (Warsaw, 1952), pp. 308, 313, 314; Y. Sh. Herts, ed., Doyres bundistn (Generations of Bundists), vol. 2 (New York, 1956), pp. 70, 72; Khayim Leyb Fuks, biography of Leyzer Heler, in Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur, vol. 3: http://yleksikon.blogspot.ca/2016/03/leyzer-heler.html

Khayim Leyb Fuks