BOREKH TSUKERMAN (BARUCH ZUCKERMAN)

BOREKH TSUKERMAN (BARUCH ZUCKERMAN) (June 26, 1887-December 14, 1970)

            He was born in Kurenets, Vilna region.  His father Avigdor Tsukerman was a small-time collector and seller of farm goods.  At age eight he entered the Smorgon yeshiva.  In later years he studied at the yeshivas in Yelok (Ylakiai) in Kovno district, Telz, and Libave (Liepāja), and ultimately in the Vilna yeshiva where Rabbi Chaim-Ozer Grodzenski was headmaster.  Under the influence of Dr. Theodor Herzl’s visit to Vilna (1903), Tsukerman became a Zionist.  He had become acquainted with socialist literature earlier.  In 1904 he came to the United States, where he joined in the initial rise of the Labor Zionist party.  In 1905 he took part in the first conference of the party.  When the split in the party between the territorialists and the proponents of the land of Israel took place, Tsukerman at first stood with the latter group, but a short time later he and Dr. N. Sirkin left to join the socialist-territorialist camp.  In 1909 when the great unification transpired, he returned to the Labor Zionist party.  From 1910 he was a member of the central committee of the party in America.  He lived for a short period of time in Philadelphia and later in Cleveland.  He worked for a time for the Jewish Bakers’ Union, and later he was a proofreader for a publishing house.  He was active in the publishers’ union.  In his position as general secretary of the Labor Zionist party, he traveled around giving speeches in the larger cities in America and establishing wings of the party.  In the years of WWI, he was in the leadership of several major actions of a general Jewish ethnic character.  When the People’s Relief was created in 1915, whose task it was to bring assistance to Jewish victims of the war in Europe, Tsukerman was named executive director.  He held this position until 1924 when the People’s Relief was dissolved.  In 1919 he went on a mission for the joint Distribution Committee to Poland to distribute relief to the starving Jewish population.  Tsukerman was one of the most active leaders in calling together the American Jewish Congress, which constituted a delegation of American Jewry to the peace conference in Paris.  In Paris this delegation concurred with the committee of the Jewish delegation that formed the embryo of the World Jewish Congress.  In 1932 he made aliya to the land of Israel.  From there he went on a mission for the World Jewish Congress and the Jewish National Fund to South Africa, England, and the European continent.  He was vice-president of the Zionist Action Committee and a member of the executive of the World Jewish Congress.  In 1938 he was sent by the World Jewish Congress on a mission to the United States.  He participated in a number of Zionist congresses.  In 1939 he attended the Zionist Congress in Geneva, and from there he was to return to Israel, but due to the tense political situation in the world, he was sent to America and took over the direction of the Histadruth Campaign.  Over the years 1948-1952, he was president of the Labor Zionist party in America.  He was also a member of the executive of the American division of the Jewish Agency and among the leaders of the departments for organization and for the countries of Latin America, until 1956 when he made aliya a second time.  In 1960 he came on a short visit to the United States on assignment from the Histadruth Campaign.  He died in Jerusalem.  His writing work began all at once with his political work for the Labor Zionist party.  His realm was journalism, and his theme was party ideology and Zionist politics.  He wrote for numerous newspapers and publications of the party.  In 1920 and 1921, he served as a member of the editorial board of the Labor Zionist organ, Di tsayt (The times), a daily newspaper that appeared over the course of twenty months under the chief editorship of Dovid Pinski.  Tsukerman was also one of the founders of Idisher kemfer (Jewish fighter).  After the death of Khayim Grinberg (Hayim Greenberg), he was for two years a member of the editorial board of this weekly newspaper.  In the years following the rise of the state of Israel, the question of the relationship between Jews in the Diaspora and the state of Israel stood at the center of Tsukerman’s publishing interests.  In connection with this issue, he represented the standpoint of one people—namely, irrespective of the fact that Jews are dispersed throughout the entire world and are citizens of numerous countries, they are nonetheless all united in uniform ethnic aspiration, and this very fact raises them to the level of one people.  For a series of articles on this topic, in 1952 he received the Shaban Prize from the Jewish Cultural Congress in France.  Among his books: Der poyle-tsienizm (Labor Zionism) (New York, 1913), 64 pp.; Undzere politishe tsiln in erets-yisroel un di idish-arabishe batsiungen (Our political goals in the land of Israel and Jewish-Arab relations) (Milwaukee, 1932), 40 pp.; Di lage in tsienizm un in erets yisroel, referat (The state of Zionism and of the land of Israel, a speech) (New York, 1935), 31 pp.; Afn veg (On the road) (New York: Idisher kemfer, 1956), 388 pp.—containing fifteen works which were mostly published earlier in a variety of journal; Zikhroynes (Memoirs) (New York: Idisher kemfer), vol. 1 (1962, 368 pp.), vol. 2 (1964, 337 pp.), vol. 3 (1966, 369 pp.); Eseyen un profiln (Essays and profiles) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1967), 451 pp.

            As Yankev Glatshteyn wrote: “In [Tsukerman’s writings], there is expressed the way of thinking of one of the most faithful Labor Zionists who elevated every party duty both for the sake of utility and for the spiritual delight that such an obligation would cause.  One finds very few Zionists like Borekh Tsukerman who so closely bring together practical Zionist ideas and warm, ‘impractical’ Jewishness; he delights, as he himself recognizes, in the influence that preaching has had on him.  He is always intrigued by the investigative style of the preacher’s language, which is explicitly present in Tsukerman’s flaming speech and in his writings, but this is good preaching, without the sulfurous reproof.”

Sources: Y. Rabinovitsh, in Di tsayt (New York) (October 18, 1920); Revutski, in Di tsayt (October 28, 1921); B. Ts. Goldberg, in Tog (New York) (March 20, 1932); F. Kadizhon, in Undzer vort (Paris) (August 12, 1953); V. Grosman, Amol un haynt, zikhroynes un gendanken (Then and now, memories and thoughts) (Paris, 1955), p. 107; L. Sigal, in Dos vort (Mexico City) (July 5, 1956); Yankev Glatshteyn, in Keneder odler (Montreal) (1956); Glatshteyn, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (March 3, 1957); A. Oyerbakh, in Tog (July 16, 1956); Oyerbakh, in Idisher kemfer (New York) (June 28, 1957; September 14, 1962; October 27, 1963); Meylekh Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 1 (Montreal, 1958), p. 484; P. Shteynvaks, Tsienistn (Zionists), vol. 1 (Buenos Aires, 1960), pp. 98-102; A. Golomb, in Der veg (Mexico City) (December 23, 1961); A. Ḥ. Elḥanani, in Folk un tsien (Jerusalem) (July 1962); Elḥanani, in Keneder odler (August 1, 1962); Elḥanani, in Idisher kemfer (July 13, 1963); Y. Ayzenberg, in Maariv (Tel Aviv) (January 11, 1963); Ayzenberg, in Undzer kiem (Paris) (March 1963); Y. A. Gilboa, in Folk un tsien (August 1963); A. Manor, in Hapoal hatsayir (Tel Aviv) (February 11, 1964); Y. Yonasovitsh, in Idisher kemfer (May 29, 1964); Yonasovitsh, in Di naye tsayt (Buenos Aires) (June 5, 1964).

Yekhiel Hirshhoyt

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 459.]