YOYSEF LEZMAN

YOYSEF LEZMAN (b. 1904)

            He was born in Berdichev, Ukraine.  He later lived in Kiev and Moscow.  He graduated from the Communist University of National Minorities of the West (Mayrevke) in Moscow.  He was an active leader in the Jewish section of the organizations “Pyonir” (Pioneer) and “Komyug” ([Jewish] Communist youth association), as well as in “Gezerd” (All-Union Association for the Agricultural Settlement of Jewish Workers in the USSR).  He was secretary (1927-1929) of the central bureau of the Jewish section of the central committee of Komyug.  He began writing for the Berdichev newspaper for youth Yugnt-glokn (Youth bells) in 1921 and later was one of the editors of Yungvald (Young forest) in Moscow (1926-1928).  He was a member of the editorial board of the children’s magazine Pyonir in Moscow (1925-1928), Yung gvardye (Young guard) in Kharkov (1924-1936), and Yunger boy-klang (Young sound of construction) in Kharkov (1927-1928).  He contributed pieces as well to: Der emes (The truth) in Moscow; Der shtern (The star) and Di royte velt (The red world) in Kharkov; and elsewhere.  He was the author of: Der komyug in der idisher svive (The Communist youth association in the Jewish environment) (Moscow, 1927), 86 pp.; Dos muz visn yeder komyugist (Every member of Komyug must know this) (Moscow, 1928), 73 pp.; Fun sayde-menukhe biz kalinindorf (From Sayde-menukhe to Kalinidorf), images of life on Jewish collective farms (Kiev, 1932), 124 pp. (published earlier in separate features pieces in Der emes and other newspapers).  Together with Sh. Golubyatski and A. Yeruzalimski, he compiled the reader Polit-alef-beys farn komyugist (Political alphabet for the Komyugist) (Moscow, 1925), 186 pp.  He was at the front during WWII, and thereafter he lived in Kharkov.

Sources: A. Kirzhnits, Di yidishe prese in ratnfarband, 1917-1927 (The Yiddish press in the Soviet Union, 1917-1927) (Minsk, 1928), nos. 275, 294; Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), see index; N. Rubinshteyn, Dos yidishe bukh in sovetnfarband in 1932 (The Yiddish book in the Soviet Union in 1932), (Kiev, 1932), no. 186; Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), see index.

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 350; Chaim Beider, Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc., 2011), p. 219.]