YISROEL
EFROYKIN (January 24, 1884-April 12, 1954)
The brother of Zalmen Yefroykin, he
was born in Vekshne (Viekšniai), Kovno district, Lithuania, into a merchant
family with followers of the Jewish Enlightenment. Until age fourteen he studied in religious
primary school and in the famed Telz yeshiva.
Thereafter, as his family moved to Libave (Liepāja), Latvia, he began to study,
as an external student, secular subject matter.
In 1904 he went to study at Berne University. Over the years 1904-1910, he continued his
studies, with interruptions, initially in philosophy and later in law, but for
material reasons he was unable to complete his studies. In 1910 he settled in St. Petersburg. His community activities began in 1904 when
he joined the Zionist socialist group “Vozrozhdenie” (Renaissance). Through the years 1905-1906, he devoted
himself to party work together with M. Zilberfarb, N. Shtif, and Z.
Kalmanovitsh. He began his literary
activities in those years with translations into Russian of Perets and Nomberg,
published in the radical newspaper Severnyi
kur’er (Northern messenger). In 1904
he published an article in Fraynd
(Friend) under the pen name Rifoelzon, and he contributed work to the organ of
the Sejmists, Di folks-shtime (The
voice of the people), and to Dr. Chaim Zhitlovsky’s Dos naye lebn (The new life).
Together with Sh. Dubnov, Sh. Ginzberg, Y. Tsinberg, and Kh. D. Hurvits,
in 1912 he founded the monthly journal Di
yidishe velt (The Jewish world).
Later, when the journal was moved to Vilna, Efroykin and Shmuel Niger
were members of the editorial board and Efroykin published monthly reports in
it. With Niger, Z. Kalmanovitsh, and N.
Shtif, he edited (1914-1915) Di vokh
(The week) in Vilna, and he placed work in: Novyi voskhod (New sunrise) and Evreiskii mir (Jewish world), among
other serials. Over the course of
1911-1917, he worked in the field of the Jewish cooperative movement as an
inspector for YIKO (Jewish Cultural Organization). After the February Revolution in Russia
(1917), he, Dubnov, Shtif, Latski-Bertoldi, Y. Tshernikhov, and F. Dubinski
founded “Di yidishe demokratishe fareynikung” (The Jewish democratic
union). A short time later, it took on
the name “Yidishe folks-partey” (Jewish people’s party [Folks-partey]).
In 1920, with a delegation of the
Jewish relief committee Yekopo (Yevreyskiy komitet pomoshchi zhertvam voyny, or “Jewish Relief Committee for War Victims”),
which he helped found at the outbreak of WWI, he arrived in Paris to organize
relief work there for Russian Jews in great numbers. He administered the general secretariat until
the dissolution of the institution in 1925.
Efroykin then turned to private business in which he was very
successful. The riches he earned,
though, in no way hindered his remaining an active community leader. In August 1917 at the conference of the
Committee of Jewish Delegations in Zurich, he was elected a member of the
permanent executive committee. Over the
course of all the years to follow, he actively participated in the work of this
Committee. In 1936 when the Committee of
Jewish Delegations was transformed into the Jewish World Congress, he and Rabbi
S. Weiss, Dr. N. Goldman, and other leaders stood by the roots of this
organization. Several years before the
outbreak of WWII, Efroykin was invited to take on the position of chairman of
the Federation of Jewish Societies of France.
When Hitler invaded France, Efroykin initially sought protection in the unoccupied
zone of France, where he remained active in the realm of relief work. At the very last moment before the Nazis
occupied that part of France as well, he was successfully rescued and taken to South
America, and he settled in Montevideo, Uruguay.
After the end of the war, he returned to Paris and with great energy threw
himself into rebuilding Jewish associations destroyed in France.
Throughout
his Parisian period, Efroykin concentrated his literary activities on
fundamental problems of Jewish existence.
At the time, he and Elye Tsherikover edited and published the
anthologies of Afn sheydveg (At the
crossroads). The central theme in this
work was Jewish life—continuity and existence.
Two issues appeared: April 1939 and August 1939. Efroykin continued the publication in
Montevideo, when he was also co-editor of the journal Shriftn (Writings). He went
on to join the Labor Zionist-Hitaḥdut Party and, after returning to France, he
was selected to be a member of the central committee of the party in
France. After the war Efroykin launched
the journal Kiem (Existence), which he
edited and published from 1948 until 1952 (sixty issues). In Di
goldene keyt (The golden chain) 15 (1953), he published a piece entitled: “Sines-yisroel
un sines tsien (antisemitizm)” (Anti-Israel and anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism).
In
book form: In kholem un af der vor
(In dream and reality) (New York, 1944), 377 pp.; A khezhbn-hanefesh (A spiritual stocktaking) (Paris: Tserata,
1948), 491 pp., Hebrew translation by Avraham Kariv as Ḥeshban hanefesh (Tel Aviv, 1950), 295 pp.; Kdushe un
gvure bay yidn amol un haynt (Sanctity and fortitude among Jews past and present) (New
York, 1949), 164 pp.; Oyfkum un umkum fun
yidishe goles-shprakhn un dialektn (The rise and fall of diaspora Jewish
languages and dialects) (Paris, 1951), 95 pp.
Several
months before his death, Efroykin was appointed the first community head of the
first community of Eastern European Jews in Paris. He also wrote under such pen names as: Rifoelzon,
Y. Manin, A. Litovski, Aleksander, and Efron.
Sources:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 2; D.
Tsharni (Daniel Charney), Barg-aroyf,
bletlekh fun lebn (Uphill, pages from life) (Warsaw: Literarishe bleter,
1935); Y. Bashevis, in Tsukunft (New
York) (January 1940); A. Fefer, in Ikuf
(Buenos Aires) (November 1948); Y. Kharlash, in Veker (New York) (December 15, 1948); Sh. Z. Shragai, in Unzer veg (Paris) 74 (1948); Shragai, in
Letste nayes (Tel Aviv) (May 7,
1954); B. Tshubinski, in Tsukunft
(November 1952); Dr. A. Mukdoni, Oysland,
mayne bagegenishn (Abroad, my encounters) (Buenos Aires, 1951);
Mukdoni, in Der shpigl (Buenos Aires)
(August 1954); Meylekh Ravitsh, in Keneder
odler (Montreal) (August 21, 1951); Ravitsh, in Der veg (Mexico City) (October 9, 1951); Ravitsh, in Letste nayes (December 14, 1951); Y.
Yanasovitsh, in Arbeter-vort (Paris)
(January 18, 1952); Yanasovitsh, in Di
naye tsayt (Buenos Aires) (May 6, 1954); Khayim Leyb Fuks, in Arbeter-vort (January 18, 1952); Khayim
Grinberg, in Idisher kemfer (New
York) (October 24, 1952); Y. Botoshanski, in Di prese (Buenos Aires) (April 14, 1954); Shmuel Niger, in Tog (New York) (April 17, 1954); Niger,
in Di yidishe tsaytung (Buenos Aires)
(May 12, 1954); Y. Grinboym, in Letste
nayes (April 23, 1954); Grinboym, Fun mayn dor (Of my generation) (Tel Aviv: Makor, 1959); A.
Tsaytlin, in Tog (April 30, 1954); Y.
Mark, in Kultur un dertsiung (New
York) (May 1954); A. Alperin, in Tog
(May 4, 1954); Alperin, in Tsukunft
(July 1954); L. Domankevitsh, in Unzer
vort (Paris) (May 15, 1954); Y. Anshel, in Kiem (Paris) 2 (63) (1954); Y. Gotfarshteyn, in Kiem 2 (1963) (1954); Dr. M. Dvorzhetski
(Mark Dvorzetsky), in Di goldene keyt
(Tel Aviv) 20 (1954); B. Tsukerman, in Idisher
kemfer (January 27, 1961; Passover issue 1960); Dr. Elye (Elias) Shulman,
in Pinkes (New York) (1965), pp. 122ff.
Yekhiel Hirshhoyt
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