N. NATANZON

N. NATANZON

            He was a journalist and a leader in Gezerd (All-Soviet Association for the Agricultural Settlement of Jewish Workers in the USSR) in Ukraine and in greater Russia. He worked as a correspondent for the newspapers Emes (Truth) in Moscow and Oktyabr (October) in Minsk. The principal themes of his writings from the late 1920s through the early 1930s were the Jewish village and the Jewish peasant. As emissary for Gezerd, he traveled from Ukraine to Birobidzhan, and from there he sent in jottings and reportage pieces about the lives of the Jewish emigrants. In 1932 Emes publishing house brought out his book A land in rishtevanyes, fartseykhenungen fun birebidzhaner rayon, vinter 1932 (A land in scaffolding, notes from Birobidzhan district, winter 1932) (Moscow), 80 pp., which was based on his writings about the district published earlier in the newspapers Emes and Birobidzhaner shtern (Birobidzhan star).

He also authored: Bolshevistisher shnit af di sotsyalistishe felder (Bolshevik harvest on socialist fields) (Moscow: Gezerd, 1931), 61 pp.; Kolektivizatsye un kultur-arbet in yidishn dorf (Collectivization and cultural work in a Jewish village) (Moscow: Central Publishers, 1931), 48 pp.; Komune “der emes” (Commune “The truth”) (Moscow: Central Publishers, 1931), 32 pp.

Sources: N. Rubinshteyn, Dos yidishe bukh in sovetnfarband (The Yiddish book in the Soviet Union) (Minsk, 1932), see index; Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), see index.

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 388; and 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. 247.]