YITSKHOK-OSHER NAYDITSH (ISAAC ASHER NAIDITCH)

YITSKHOK-OSHER NAYDITSH (ISAAC ASHER NAIDITCH) (1868-1949)

            He was born in Pinsk, Byelorussia.  He studied in religious elementary school and later secular subject matter.  At the age of fifteen, he joined the “Ḥoveve-tsiyon” (Lovers of Zion) and became secretary of the Pinsk Aguda (Orthodox) organization.  In 1889 he settled in Moscow, where he took up commerce and became wealthy.  With the rise of political Zionism, he became one of its most devoted adherents.  In 1913 he was selected onto the Zionist action committee, and he looked after the financial concerns of the movement.  In late 1918 he left Russia, moving initially to London and later to Paris.  He was a member of the “Committee of Jewish Delegations” in Paris.  He assisted in the founding of the Jewish World Congress.  During the Hitler years (1940-1945), he lived in the United States, where he represented the European Zionists.  As a patron he helped disseminate the Hebrew press and literature, and he supported in all sorts of ways clergymen and writers.  In his youth he wrote poetry and journalistic articles in Hebrew, later in Yiddish as well.  Over the years 1920-1940, he published articles in Warsaw’s Haynt (Today), in New York’s Der tog (The day) and Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal), in London’s Haolam (The world), and elsewhere.  In 1920 in London he published a pamphlet entitled Folks-mayser, der yesod fun unzer befrayung (People’s tithe, the foundation of our liberation), 20 pp., about the Jewish National Fund—in English, The Rebuilding of Palestine in Its Financial Aspects (London, 1920), 15 pp.; and in New York a book in English, Edmond de Rothschild (Washington, D.C.: Zionist Organization of America, 1945), 114 pp.  In Israel in 1956 there was published in his memory a volume entitled Ba-ḥalom uva-maase, sefer zikaron (In dream and in deed, a volume of remembrance) (Tel Aviv: M. Nyuman), 300 pp., which included Nayditsh’s poetry, journalism, and literary essays, which had been published over the course of decades in the Hebrew and Yiddish press.  He died in Paris.

Sources: B. Ts. Kats, in Morgn-zhurnal (New York) (January 15, 1935); Kats, Zikhronot (Memoirs) (Tel Aviv, 1963), pp. 197, 213-16, 247; Kats, in Toyznt yor pinsk (1000 years of Pinsk) (New York, 1941), p. 333; A. Alperin, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (January 13, 1950); Alperin, in Dos idishe folk (New York) (January 1956); Alperin, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (February 13, 1956); Y. Grinboym, Fun mayn dor (From my generation) (Tel Aviv, 1959), pp. 405-7; Grinboym, Pene hador (The face of the generation) (Tel Aviv, 1959), pp. 333-35; Y. Hadas, in Keneder odler (February 3, 1960); D. Tidhar, in Entsiklopedyah leḥalutse hayishuv uvonav (Encyclopedia of the pioneers and builders of the yishuv), vol. 11 (Tel Aviv, 1961), p. 3856.

Yankev Kahan