SHOLEM STAROSHEVSKI

SHOLEM STAROSHEVSKI (b. November 17, 1902)

            He was born in Kosov-Telaki (later, Kosów Lacki), Poland.  The son of an itinerant schoolteacher, he attended religious primary school, the Węgrów yeshiva, as well as the yeshiva of the Sokolov rebbe.  He later worked as an assistant to a primary village schoolteacher, and after WWI he began on his own to study secular subjects.  He worked as a cobbler, a baker, and did business in a village.  In 1923 he made his way to Argentina.  There he became an apprentice to a carpenter.  In 1927 he moved to Montevideo, Uruguay.  He was the organizer of the “Workers’ Home” and “Workers’ Kitchen” with the left Labor Zionists in Montevideo, where he also helped organize a division of YIVO.  In the early 1930s, he founded (with Shame Grinberg) the weekly newspaper Dos vort (The word) in Montevideo, wrote for it, and was also its administrator.  In 1936 he published the party organ of the Labor Zionists in Uruguay: Dos arbeter-palestine (The workers’ Palestine).  In 1953 he began to publish the Umophengike idishe tribune (Independent Jewish tribune), served as editor and administrator, and also wrote for it along the lines of Mapam (United Workers’ Party).  For more than ten years he was the Uruguayan correspondent for the daily Di prese (The press) in Buenos Aires.  He wrote on literature, Jewish issues, and general socialist problems.  He also contributed to: Folksblat (People’s newspaper), Unzer fraynt (Our friend), and Haynt (Today) in Montevideo.  He was last living in Montevideo.

Sources: Y. Vaynshenker, Boyers un mitboyers fun yidishn yishev in urugvay (Founders and builders of the Jewish community in Uruguay) (Montevideo, 1957), p. 118; Di prese (Buenos Aires) (May 25, 1962); D. Gotlib, Yorbukh (Polish Jewry) (New York) 1 (1964), p. 306.

Khayim Leyb Fuks