OSHER PERLMAN

OSHER PERLMAN (b. 1895)

            He was a journalist, born in Warsaw, Poland. Until the 1920s he was a member of the central leadership of the Folks-partey (People’s party). He was later active in the Communist movement, principally in Gezerd (All-Union Association for the Agricultural Settlement of Jewish Workers in the USSR) in Poland, and a fervent proponent of the Soviet Union. For nearly fifteen years, he was among the main contributors to Moment (Moment) in Warsaw (1920-1934), and he was a member of the editorial board of Dos folk (The people) in Warsaw. In 1934 he organized and directed an illegal trip to Birobidzhan. From this trip he produced that same year: Birobidzhan, shilderung fun a rayze (Birobidzhan, description of a voyage) (Warsaw, 1934), 256 pp.—it also appeared in a separate edition in 1934 in Buenos Aires with a forward by the author (143 pp.). In it he described his impressions, full of inspiration drawn from what he saw and heard there. Because of a court sentence, he departed from Poland illegally for Russia in late 1935. There he was, over the years 1935-1937, an internal contributor to Emes (Truth) in Moscow, and he wrote for Birobidzhaner shtern (Birobidzhan star) and Oktyabr (October) in Minsk, among other serials. During the show trials of 1937, he was arrested and sent for many years to a Soviet camp in the distant North. He miraculously survived, and was freed in 1955, ailing and broken, as one deceived by Soviet realities. He became a devout, religious Jew. He contributed as well to: Der nayer gedank (The new idea) in Vilna; Iberboy (Reconstruction) in Warsaw (1933-1935); Velt iberblik (World survey) in Warsaw (1935); and a number of illegal Communist publications in Warsaw, Lodz, and Lemberg.

Sources: Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), see index; Yidisher gezelshaftlekher leksikon (Jewish community handbook) (Warsaw, 1939), p. 265; Z. Segalovitsh, Tlomatske 13, fun farbrente nekhtn (13 Tłomackie St., of zealous nights) (Buenos Aires: Central Association of Polish Jews in Argentina, 1946), p. 107; Khayim Shoshkes, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (July 7, 1956); August 31, 1958).

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Additional information from: 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. 284.]