ARN KANTOROVITSH (1892-1937)
He was a
journalist and economist. We have no precise
information about his biography. We know
only that he lived in the United States, one of the group of Yiddish writers there
who made their way to the Soviet Union in the latter half of the 1920s. In 1929 he settled in Kiev, took up a
position with ORT (Association for the Promotion of Skilled Trades),
and when the mass migrations to Birobidzhan began, he moved there as an
economist and served as one of directors of the planning division. A fervent Birobidzhan patriot, in the late
1920s and first half of the 1930s, he wrote dozens of articles on the economic state
of the new district and its great prospects.
In 1937 he was removed from his position—this was the start of the purge
of “destructive elements” among the enthusiasts who had been coming to
Birobidzhan from abroad, and Kantorovitsh’s fate at that point was sealed. His books include: Di geshikhte fun der amerikaner arbeter-bavegung (The history of
the American labor movement) (Moscow: Central Publ., 1926), 32 pp.; Tsveyter 5-yor plan far biro-bidzhan
(The second five-year plan for Birobidzhan), second printing (New York: IKOR,
1932), 15 pp.; Birobidzhan in itstikn
moment (Birobidzhan at the present moment) (Moscow: Emes, 1933), 37 pp.; Di produktiv-kreftn fun der yidisher
avtonomer gegnt fun vaytmizrekhdikn kant (The productive forces of the
Jewish Autonomous District in the Far Eastern region) (Moscow: Emes, 1937), 24
pp.
Sources: Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications
in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961); Y. M. Budish, in Almanakh fun yidishn folks ordn (Almanac
of the Jewish people’s order) (New York, 1947), p. 382; Yeshurin archive, YIBO
(New York).
Yekhezkl Lifshits
[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. 319.]
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